5 Tips: How to Keep Your New Year's Resolution

Whatever you resolve to do differently in 2009, vow also to develop a strategy to make it happen.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 7:03 pm

Spectacular New Images Showcase Saturn's Rings

New pictures of Saturn released Tuesday reveal the ringed planet in all its splendor.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 6:33 pm

Sick of Main Street, Going Green and Year-End Roundups

Many of us would now like to look ahead to what we hope will be better times.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 5:34 pm

What Science Says about Enlightened Sex

Another year, another batch of boring resolutions. So why not resolve to have better sex?
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:57 pm

Report: Columbia Astronauts Killed in Seconds

The tragic loss of the shuttle Columbia killed its astronaut crew in seconds, NASA says.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:31 pm

New Columbia Accident Report to Help Astronaut Safety

Lessons learned from NASA's Columbia accident will help boost astronaut safety.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:28 pm

Future of Commercial Spaceflight Uncertain, But Promising

The future of commercial spaceflight is uncertain, but holds promise in 2009.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:28 pm

5 Predictions for 2008 That (Thankfully) Failed

There are many self-described psychics who claim to see the future. How'd they do?
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Dec 2009 | 9:44 pm

Six North American Sites Hold 12,900-year-old Nanodiamond-rich Soil

Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, scientists report. The discoveries are consistent with theory of Clovis-age disruption by a cosmic event, according to researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Nothing To Sneeze At: Real-time Pollen Forecasts

Researchers in Germany are reporting an advance toward development of technology that could make life easier for millions of people allergic to plant pollen. It could underpin the first automated, real-time systems for identifying specific kinds of allergy-inducing plant pollen circulating in the air.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Common Oral Osteoporosis Drugs Linked To Serious Jaw Necrosis

Clinical data links oral bisphosphonates to increased jaw necrosis. The study is among the first to acknowledge that even short-term use of common oral osteoporosis drugs may leave the jaw vulnerable to devastating necrosis. Fosomax is the most widely prescribed oral bisphosphonate.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Ancient African Exodus Mostly Involved Men, Geneticists Find

Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a migration that many believe was responsible for nearly all of the human population that exist outside Africa today.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Structure Of New Botulism Nerve Toxin Subtype Revealed

Scientists have determined the structure of a third subtype of botulinum neurotoxin -- a deadly toxin that causes the disease botulism, and is also used in cosmetic and therapeutic applications. The structure reveals a unique arrangement of the active components that may help explain why subtype E is faster-acting than others -- and may have implications for improving vaccines and/or therapeutic agents.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Obesity Increases Lymphedema Risk For Breast Cancer Survivors

Throughout the world, 10 million breast cancer survivors have a lifetime risk for developing lymphedema, a chronic condition that involves swelling of the limbs and impacts physical and psychosocial health. In a new study, researchers found that the risk of developing lymphedema is 40 percent to 60 percent higher in women with body mass index classified as overweight or obese compared to normal weight women. The researchers recommend increased health education for breast cancer survivors.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Coral reef growth is slowest ever

Growth of corals in the Great Barrier Reef has slowed to the most sluggish rate in 400 years, researchers say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:53 pm

European First As ALICE Achieves Energy Recovery At 11 Million Volts

Scientists have successfully demonstrated energy recovery on the ALICE advanced particle accelerator design, potentially paving the way for new accelerators using a fraction of the energy required under conventional methods.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm

Spanish Droughts Over Past 500 Years Reconstructed

Scientists have reconstructed the pattern of droughts in Spain between 1506 and 1900 on the basis of ceremonial records held at the Cathedral of Toledo, in order to observe how droughts have varied over the past 500 years. Short-term meteorological data and tree growth rings have also been used to supplement the records of ceremonies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm

Toxicity Mechanism Identified For Parkinson's Disease

Alpha-synuclein is the main component of Lewy bodies, the clumps of aggregated proteins that form in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. The alpha-synuclein gene is mutated or triplicated in some cases of inherited Parkinson's. A process called chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) plays an important role in recycling of specific proteins in brain cells. Alpha-synuclein disrupts a key survival circuit in brain cells by interfering with CMA and the recycling of the protein MEF2D.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm

Weakened RNA Interference Reduces Survival In Ovarian Cancer

Levels of two proteins in a woman's ovarian cancer are strongly associated with her likelihood of survival, a research team reports
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm

2 major Wash. passes closed by snow; 1 reopens (AP)

AP - Falling snow and a high threat of avalanches prompted officials to close three main east-west mountain passes in Washington state on New Year's Day and at least two of the highways were expected to remain shut down into Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 8:59 am

Heat and light

A look around a US gym powered by exercise
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Jan 2009 | 8:49 am

Future perfect

Sir Peter Cook recalls 1960s avant garde visions
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Jan 2009 | 6:08 am

Exploiting nature to cut mosquitoes' life short (AP)

AP - Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger — naturally, not poisoned.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 5:39 am

Genes Predict Chances of Breast Cancer's Spread (HealthDay)

HealthDay - THURSDAY, Jan. 1 (HealthDay News) -- In a finding that could help doctors fine-tune breast cancer treatments even further, a new study confirms that there are genes that increase the likelihood that the disease will spread throughout a woman's body.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 4:47 am

'Bug' could combat dengue fever

Humans could be protected from dengue fever by infecting the mosquitoes carrying it with a parasite, say researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Jan 2009 | 2:11 am

Breakthroughs That Will Change Everything

Will humans go extinct? Or will we instead evolve into divergent species? Will wisdom will ever return to save the day.
Source: Livescience.com | 2 Jan 2009 | 12:37 am

Outrage at plans to send Descartes's skull back to his school

Military institution makes official request for the centuries-old cranium to be put on display in its adjoining church

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 2 Jan 2009 | 12:02 am

Nasa climate expert makes personal appeal to Obama

One of the world's top climate scientists has written a personal new year appeal to Barack and Michelle Obama, warning of the "profound disconnect" between public policy on climate change and the magnitude of the problem.

With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Professor James Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Professor John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the president-elect.

In it, he praises Obama's campaign rhetoric about "a planet in peril", but says that how the new president acts in office will be crucial. Hansen lambasts the current international approach of setting targets through "cap and trade" schemes as not up to the task. "This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat. It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity," the letter from Hansen and his wife, Anniek, reads.

The letter will make uncomfortable reading for officials in 10 US states whose cap and trade mechanism - the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative - got under way yesterday. The scheme is the first mandatory, market-based greenhouse gas reduction programme in the US.

Hansen advocates a three-pronged attack on the climate problem. First, he wants a phasing out of coal-fired power stations - which he calls "factories of death" - that do not incorporate carbon capture. "Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground. Caps will not cause that to happen - caps only slow the rate at which the oil and gas are used. The only solution is to cut off the coal source," the Hansens wrote.

Second, he proposes a "carbon tax and 100% dividend". This is a mechanism for putting a price on carbon without raising money for government coffers. The idea is to tax carbon at source, then redistribute the revenue equally among taxpayers, so that high carbon users are penalised while low carbon users are rewarded.

Finally, he urges a renewed research effort into so-called fourth generation nuclear plants, which can use nuclear waste as fuel.

Hansen argues that the current emphasis on reduction targets combined with carbon trading schemes make it too easy for countries to wriggle out of their commitments. He cites the example of Japan's increasing coal use, which it has offset by buying credits from China through the clean development mechanism - an instrument set up by the Kyoto protocol - yet China's emissions have continued to increase rapidly. China has overtaken the US as the biggest polluter in the world.

Hansen has been one of the most prominent advocates of action to tackle climate change since he first spoke on the issue in the 1980s. His testimony to the Senate featured in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth and he has received numerous honours for his work on the issue, including the WWF's top conservation award.

Professor's wish list

• Moratorium on and phasing out of coal power stations without carbon capture, what Hansen calls the "sine qua non for solving the climate problem". Coal CO2 emissions are the same as those of other fossil fuels combined.

• Raising the price of emissions via a "carbon tax and 100% dividend". This is a tax mechanism to "decarbonise" the economy without a net take from taxpayers. Low carbon users are rewarded while high users are punished.

• Urgent research on "fourth generation" nuclear power with international co-operation. This offers one of the best options for nearly carbon-free power, according to Hansen. It would also help to solve the nuclear waste problem by using that material as fuel.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 2 Jan 2009 | 12:02 am

Editorial: In praise of ... missing links

Editorial: Scientists hate the phrase but the notion of a chain that stretches across time is worth clinging to

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 2 Jan 2009 | 12:02 am

Antibiotics before infections save lives: study

LONDON (Reuters) - Giving antibiotics to patients in intensive care units as a precaution saves lives, according to a major Dutch study published Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 11:43 pm

US urges Russia and Ukraine to end gas row through talks (AFP)

AFP - The United States on Thursday urged Russia and Ukraine to resume negotiations to resolve a natural gas dispute which has led to a supply cut which could threaten western Europe.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 11:35 pm

Virginity Pledges Don't Work

The U.S. government spends more than $200 million annually on abstinence programs, including virginity pledges.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Jan 2009 | 10:12 pm

Study: Hawaii's pygmy killer whales stay close (AP)

AP - A new study of pygmy killer whales — one of the least understood marine mammal species — shows that those living off Hawaii tend to stay close to the islands and don't swim out to the open ocean.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 8:07 pm

Green Mosquitoes Could Control Killer Disease

By adding a life-shortening bacteria to disease-carrying mosquitoes, Australian researchers might have found a clever way to control Dengue fever, a developing world scourge now becoming common in the southern United States.

Thus infected, mosquitoes live long enough to reproduce, ensuring contagion within their own population — but their lives are too short for the Dengue-causing virus inside them to become fully mature and deadly to humans.

"We're not trying to eliminate the population, but to let a bacterial symbiont in, and then shift the population," said University of Queensland bacterial geneticist Scott O'Neill. "There will still be mosquitoes around, but only young ones. It's a biological control."

Dengue fever infects between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, causing severe flu-like symptoms and — in especially severe cases — a hemorrhagic fever that kills more than 20,000 people each year. Though treatable, the disease cannot be prevented — but not for lack of trying.

Many Dengue control plans, from pesticides to sterilized mosquitoes, have worked in a laboratory but fallen short in reality. Nevertheless, O'Neill's bacterial hack has drawn praise from grizzled Dengue control experts, and its promise comes at an opportune time.

Disease burden is greatest in the developing world, but climate change has driven Dengue's tropical mosquito vectors into previously-inhospitable regions, and incidence is rising in the southern United States and Puerto Rico. 

"This isn't just a problem in Central America and Africa and Southeast Asia. It's a growing problem as well in the United States," said Joe Cummins, a University of Western Ontario geneticist who called O'Neill's technique "simple and elegant."

Years ago, O'Neill and his colleagues noticed that Wolbachia, a common bacterial parasite in insects, shortened the lives of fruit flies. If it did the same in Dengue-carrying mosquitoes, they reasoned, it would kill them before virus reached maturity. Dengue only affects humans during the last stages of its life cycle.

But repeated efforts to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia failed until, as described in a paper published Thursday in Science, his team cultured the bacteria in dishes of mosquito cells for three years. The microbes adapted to their new host species' cellular environment.

O'Neill's Wolbachia strain now has a taste for mosquitoes. Once infected, the insects live for about a month — just half their normal lifespan, but long enough to reproduce.

Through a quirk of mosquito physiology, if an uninfected female mates with a Wolbachia-carrying male, she goes sterile. Meanwhile, infected females produce infected offspring, regardless of the male's disease status.

The mathematical inexorability of this phenomenon will make it difficult for mosquitoes to develop resistance, hopes O'Neill, and will guarantee Wolbachia's Dengue-crippling spread through entire mosquito populations. All he has to do is inject Wolbachia into a few starter bugs, breed them, and send them into the world.

"It'll spread the trait out there 100 percent, despite the fitness cost," he said. "We're in the sweet spot. All individuals will get the parasite. That's the key to this whole strategy."

The Dengue virus itself could also evolve into a more rapidly-maturing form, but O'Neill thinks this unlikely. Only a few mosquitoes now live long enough for Dengue to reach full virulence: selection already favors accelerated development.

"I think we're being close to up against some genetic constraint, where Dengue virus is going through mosquitoes as fast as it possibly can," said O'Neill.

Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, said the early results "look very promising." However, he cautioned that many earlier Dengue control approaches "worked beautifully in the laboratory, but failed miserably when taken to the field. The real test is if they can show that this works in field populations."

O'Neill, his research funded by the Gates Foundation, next plans on testing the method in large, enclosed cages. That puts his developmental timeline behind another Gates Foundation-supported Dengue control plan, developed by biotechnology company Oxitec.

The company, which is scheduled to begin wild-release trials in Malaysia over the next three years, has developed genetically-engineered male mosquitoes whose offspring die shortly after hatching. However, unless sustained by steady releases of engineered mosquitoes, the technique may only clear a path for fresh waves of disease carriers. Modified mosquitoes could also face activist opposition, especially in the developed world. 

As an alternative to such techniques, said Cummins, "I'm unabashedly positive" about using Wolbachia to hobble Dengue. "The thing that's so attractive is that it's a green proposal, using organic techniques. Hopefully it'll work."

"I don't see any down side to using this approach. Wolbachia is ubiquitous in other species," said Gubler. Its use, he said, "should have no deleterious effects on the ecology."

Gubler called the potential Dengue benefits "immeasurable" — and that, said O'Neill, could be just the beginning.

"The underlying principle applies to a range of other pathogens, including elephantiasis and malaria," he said. "We'd like to see if this could be used for a range of other diseases as well."

Citation: "Stable Introduction of a Life-Shortening Wolbachia Infection into the Mosquito Aedes aegypti." By Conor J. McMeniman, Roxanna V. Lane, Bodil N. Cass, Amy W.C. Fong, Manpreet Sidhu, Yu-Feng Wang,Scott L. O’Neill. Science Vol. 323, Jan. 2, 2009

Image: Fundacion Proteger

See Also:

• GM Mosquitoes Nearing Widespread Release in Malaysia
• Third World Biotech: A Quick Test for Dengue Fever
• Feverish Computing Leads Biologists Toward a Vaccine
• Complex Medical Test Made From Paper and Tape for Three Cents

WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 1 Jan 2009 | 8:07 pm

Slowdown of coral growth extremely worrying, say scientists

Coral growth across the Great Barrier Reef has suffered a "severe and sudden" slowdown since 1990 that is unprecedented in the last four centuries, according to scientists.

The researchers analysed the growth rates of 328 coral colonies on 69 individual reefs that make up the 1,250 mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off north-east Australia. They found that the rate at which the corals were laying down calcium in their skeletons dropped by 14.2% between 1990 and 2005.

Corals around the world are severely threatened by coastal pollution, warming seas and over-exploitation, but the most probable explanation for the drop in the growth rate of the corals' calcium carbonate skeletons is acidification of the water due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. More acid water makes it more difficult for the coral polyps to grab the minerals they need to build their skeletons from the sea water.

"Our data shows that growth and calcification of massive Porites in the GBR [Great Barrier Reef] are already declining and are doing so at a rate unprecedented in coral records reaching back 400 years," wrote Dr Glenn De'ath from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland, and his colleagues in the journal Science. "Verification of the causes of this decline should be made a high priority."

Porites corals can be centuries old and grow into 6m tall mounds. Rather like a tree ring, each year's growth is visible as a band, so by drilling into the corals the scientists could examine the extent of growth in specific years. The team used x-rays and a technique called gamma densitometry to measure annual growth and skeletal density, which then allowed them to calculate the amount of calcification annually. They found that the calcification rate rose 5.4% between 1900 and 1970, but this dropped by 14.2% between 1990 and 2005. The drop was mainly due to a growth slowdown from 1.43cm a year to 1.24cm. The researchers measured the same effect in both nearshore and offshore reefs, suggesting it is not due to pollution from the land.

"This study has provided the first really rigorous snapshot of how calcification might be changing," marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland in Australia told Science. "The results are extremely worrying."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

International Year of Astronomy: Get Cheap Telescopes! (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Four hundred-year-old light from the Pleiades star cluster will be used early this year to initiate a virtual ribbon-cutting in the Second Life online community for the International Year of Astronomy — aimed at bringing astronomy to more of the general public.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 6:07 pm

A letter to Obama

We write to you as fellow parents concerned about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 4:00 pm

Nasa's James Hansen warns Barack Obama on climate change

Current approaches to deal with climate change are ineffectual, one of the world's top climate scientists said today in a personal new year appeal to Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the urgent need to tackle global warming.

With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Prof James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Prof John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the president-elect.

Obama spoke repeatedly during his campaign about the need to tackle climate change, and environmentalists fervently hope he will live up to his promises to pursue green policies.

The letter, from Hansen and his wife Anniek, is a personal plea to the first couple. It begins: "We write to you as fellow parents concerned about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born … Jim has advised governments previously through regular channels. But urgency now dictates a personal appeal."

In a covering letter to Holdren, Hansen explains that he wrote the letter a few weeks ago while in London. His wife had suffered a heart attack ("fortunately we were near a very good hospital") and while they waited for doctors to give the go-ahead to fly back to the US he decided to compose his petition to the new first family.

Hansen has been one of the most prominent advocates of action to tackle climate change since he first spoke on the issue at congressional hearings in the 1980s. His testimony to the senate featured in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth and he has received numerous honours for his work on the issue, including the WWF's top conservation award.

Hansen wrote that there is a "profound disconnect" between public policy on climate change and the magnitude of the problem as described by the science. He praised Obama's campaign rhetoric about "a planet in peril", but said that how the new president responds in office will be crucial. The letter contains a wish list of three policy measures to tackle global warming.

Hansen lambasts the current international approach of setting targets to be met through "cap and trade" schemes as not up to the task. "This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat. It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity," the Hansens wrote.

The letter will make uncomfortable reading for officials in 10 north-eastern and middle–Atlantic states whose carbon cap and trade mechanism – the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – got under way today. The scheme is the first mandatory, market-based greenhouse gas reduction programme in the US and it aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 10% by 2018.

Hansen advocates a three-pronged attack on the climate problem – all measures he has promoted before. First, he wants a moratorium and phase-out of coal-fired power stations – which he calls "factories of death" – that do not incorporate carbon capture and storage.

"Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as the other fossil fuels combined, and its reserves make coal even more important for the long run," the Hansens wrote.

Second, he proposes a "carbon tax and 100% dividend": a mechanism for putting a price on carbon without raising money for government coffers. The idea is to tax carbon at source, then redistribute the revenue equally among taxpayers, so high carbon users are penalised while low carbon users are rewarded.

Finally, Hansen wants a renewed research effort into so-called fourth generation nuclear plants, which can use nuclear waste as fuel. "In our opinion [fourth generation nuclear power] deserves your strong support, because it has the potential to help solve past problems with nuclear power: nuclear waste, the need to mine for nuclear fuel, and release of radioactive material."

Hansen argues that the current emphasis on reduction targets combined with carbon trading schemes make it too easy for countries to wriggle out of their commitments. He cites the example of Japan's increasing coal use – the dirtiest fuel in terms of carbon emissions. To offset these increases in emissions Japan has bought credits from China through the clean development mechanism – an instrument set up by the Kyoto protocol – yet China's emissions have continued to increase rapidly. China has now overtaken the US as the biggest polluter in the world.

"Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground. Caps will not cause that to happen – caps only slow the rate at which the oil and gas are used. The only solution is to cut off the coal source," the Hansens wrote.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 3:23 pm

Longannet is at the centre of Scottish Power's plans to prove coal can provide Britain and other countries with a key component in the pursuit of energy security, affordability and sustainability

On the banks of the Firth of Forth, the Longannet power station dominates the wintry horizon, a massive box in the shadow of its skyscraper chimney stack.

Conceived more than 40 years ago and completed at the beginning of the 1970s, long before climate change became a central tenet of the energy debate, Longannet was designed with stunning industrial simplicity and symmetry.

Britain's second-largest coal-fired power station was a product of a time when electricity generation was based on a technology now dismissed by modern engineers, not entirely without affection, as "burn and boil". You burned the fossil fuel, and used the heat to boil water, which drove the turbines to generate electricity.

Today, Longannet is at the centre of its owner ScottishPower's plans to demonstrate there is more to coal than burn and boil; that despite opposition from environmentalists, it has a future in providing Britain and other countries with a key component in the pursuit of energy security, affordability and sustainability, and is not, as some critics argue, a 19th-century nightmare haunting the 21st century.

In trying to make Longannet a centre for technological excellence, ScottishPower is turning it into a giant chemistry set. More than 1,000 contractors are putting the finishing touches to flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) equipment in three of the plant's four turbines.

Fitting FGD brings Longannet into line with the European Union's large combustion plant directive on reducing sulphur dioxide emissions. Without FGD, it would run for only limited hours, and would have to close in 2015.

Life extension does not come cheap. According to John Campbell, director of energy wholesale at ScottishPower, the company is investing about £170m in FGD, while associated investments to extend the plant's life have lifted the bill to £250m.

The scheme does have local benefits. Last year ScottishPower signed a five-year deal, worth up to £700m, with Scottish Coal to provide coal for Longannet and its smaller coal plant at Cockenzie.

At the time the deal was signed, Ignacio Galán, the chairman and chief executive of ScottishPower's Spanish parent, Iberdrola, made clear his ambitions for coal and Longannet: "Coal generation has a significant contribution to the security of electricity supply in the UK today."

The next stage is to fit Longannet with equipment to reduce emissions of nitrous oxides (NOX) to conform with impending legislation. The process uses ammonia and a vanadium pentoxide catalyst to turn the NOX into water and nitrogen. Fitting the equipment will cost "several hundred million pounds" and require greater political clarity, according to ScottishPower executives. Work is also under way on a 25-mega­watt biomass plant, using wood chip, peanut husks and dried waste.

The big issue, however, is carbon capture and storage (CCS). For fossil fuel burners, this is a kind of holy grail, though one not yet available on a commercial scale. The theory is simply: carbon dioxide is collected, transported and buried in holes in the ground.

The government is keen, and is running a competition to encourage the development of CCS. It could help the UK cut emission levels and be sold to power generators around the world.

But as Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, said in a speech last month, CCS is vital to reconciling the continuing use of coal with Britain's emission targets.

He told a conference at Imperial College London: "Clean fossil fuels are a less sure prospect because of uncertainties around carbon capture and storage, the great prize of clean coal and gas.

"What is clear is that we cannot say that in 20 years' time we will be building unabated coal-fired power stations and that we will meet our carbon budgets. It's not credible," he said.

It is a view that ScottishPower and Iberdrola appear to accept. As Galán said last year: "Iberdrola is committed to developing the best technologies that will deliver low-carbon generation in this country.

"Through our existing co-firing capability of biomass with potential advances in carbon capture and storage technologies, we are ready to provide the flexible generation needed to support the UK's growth goals in renewable energy and at the same time ensure security of supply."

If he gets his way, and if CCS does prove commercially viable, Longannet will brood over the Firth of Forth for some years to come. Some might say that is a big if; it will certainly be an expensive one.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 2:22 pm