Month: August 2017

American workers are facing a paradox – many of them cannot find work while a lot of companies say they cannot find suitable candidates for job openings. Experts say the problem is in the so-called ‘skill gap,’ the incompatibility between available skills and job requirements. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Bonobos are primates that are very closely related to chimpanzees, and humans. They are found exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s not completely clear how many of them there are, but it is known that their numbers are on the decline. But the world’s only bonobo sanctuary is committed to ensuring these animals survive and stay wild. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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In spite of many attempts to replace it with a more suitable material, asphalt concrete remains the best and cheapest material for paving roads. Vulnerable to heat, ice, ultraviolet light and mechanical stress, it has a relatively short lifespan and has to be repaired or replaced at regular intervals. Swiss engineers say they may have found a formula for asphalt with self-healing properties VOA’s George Putic reports.
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A new device, developed by an Israeli start-up, could make routine visits to the doctor’s office a thing of the past. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the IUCN. Threats come on land and sea. Thousands of turtles die every year in fishing nets, and their eggs are considered a delicacy. But on one protected beach in Mexico, the Olive Ridley turtles are swarming. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Marine authorities in the U.S. and Canada said Friday they will marshal resources to try to find out what’s behind a string of deaths of endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The animals are among the rarest marine mammals in the world, with only about 500 still living. The countries will collaborate on a report that could help craft future regulations that protect the vulnerable whales, representatives said.

Representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Fisheries and Oceans Canada both said ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear have played roles in the deaths of the whales, and that other factors also could have played a role.

The goal of the countries is to find out more about why 13 of the whales have been found dead this year and respond with solutions, said David Gouveia, protected species monitoring program branch chief for NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region.

“The North Atlantic right whale is fragile, and one of NOAA and DFO’s most difficult conservation challenges,” Gouveia said. “Every factor impacting their ability to thrive is significant.”

This year, 10 dead whales have been found off Canada’s coast and three off the coast of Massachusetts, prompting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare the deaths an “unusual mortality event” on Thursday and to launch an investigation. The agency said that designation triggers a “focused, expert investigation” into the cause of the deaths.

The report will take months to assemble, and a budget for the investigation has not been developed, officials said. The effort will involve collecting data on each whale that died and considering factors such as changes to the environment and habitat, they said.

An average number of dead right whales would be about four, Gouveia said. Representatives for both countries said strategies to protect the whales could include fishing gear modifications, ship speed restrictions and changes to shipping traffic patterns.

“The priority is to protect these whales,” said Matthew Hardy, aquatic resources management division manager for Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Conservationists have said the right whale population is so small that a year of poor reproduction and heavy mortality could threaten its survival. Only a few baby right whales were born this year, said Charles “Stormy” Mayo, a senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Biologist Regina Asmutis-Silvia of Whale and Dolphin Conservation has called this year’s number of deaths “unprecedented.” She and other conservationists have said right whales haven’t suffered such high mortality since the whaling era, when their populations were decimated. Hunting right whales became illegal 80 years ago.

The whales migrate north every summer to feed. Scott Kraus, who heads the New England Aquarium’s right whale research program, has said it’s possible the whales are more vulnerable to hazards because they are traveling more due to changes in the availability of food.
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The Saffir-Simpson scale of a hurricane’s intensity is used to estimate potential property damage and coastal flooding caused by storm surge. The scale is determined by wind speed. Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water above the normal tide, generated by a storm. Flooding from storm surge depends on many factors, such as the track, intensity, size, and forward speed of the storm and the characteristics of the coastline where it comes ashore or passes nearby.

Category 1

Winds of 74-95 mph (120-150 kph). Storm surge of 4 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 meters) above normal. Damage primarily to unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery and trees. Some damage to poorly constructed signs and piers. Extensive damage to power lines and poles likely will result in power outages that could last a few to several days.

Category 2

Winds of 96-110 mph (155-175 kph). Storm surge 6 to 8 feet (1.8-2.4 meters) above normal. Some roof, door and window damage to buildings. Considerable damage to mobile homes, small watercraft, trees, poorly constructed signs and piers. Flooding of coastal and low-lying areas. Many shallowly rooted trees will be snapped or uprooted and block numerous roads. Near-total power loss is expected with outages that could last from several days to weeks.

Category 3

Winds of 111-129 mph (180-210 kph). Storm surge 9 to 12 feet (3 to 4 meters) above normal. Some structural damage to small homes. Mobile homes destroyed and large trees blown down. Coastal flooding destroys smaller structures and floating debris damages larger structures. Terrain lower than 5 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level may flood as far as 8 miles (13 kilometers) inland. Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, was a Category 3 storm at landfall in 2005 after being a Category 5 in the Gulf of Mexico. At least 1,800 people died.

Category 4

Winds of 130-156 mph (210-250 kph). Storm surge 13 to 18 feet (4-5 meters) above normal. Wall failures and roof collapses on small homes, and extensive damage to doors and windows. Complete destruction of some homes, especially mobile homes. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Major coastal flooding damage. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months. Two 2004 storms were Category 4: Hurricane Ivan, which made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Hurricane Charley, which hit the Florida Gulf Coast near Fort Myers. Charley killed at least 21 people and left thousands homeless. The total U.S. damage was estimated to be near $15 billion.

Category 5

Winds greater than 157 mph (250 kph). Storm surge greater than 18 feet (5 meters) above normal. Complete roof failure on many homes and industrial buildings. Smaller buildings and mobile homes blown over or completely blown away. Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 15 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level and within 500 yards (460 meters) of the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 kilometers) inland may be required. The last Category 5 storm to hit the United States was Hurricane Andrew in 1992. An estimated 250,000 were left homeless and the storm caused more than $20 billion in damage in the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana. Fifty-five people were killed.

Source: National Hurricane Center
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Kristin Zaitz is confident that her nuclear power plant is safe.

Zaitz, an engineering manager, was at Diablo Canyon Power Plant during both her pregnancies and has scuba dived to inspect the plant, which hugs the California coast. Zaitz wears a pendant with a tiny bit of uranium inside, an item that tends to invite questions.

“We all have our perceptions of nuclear,” Zaitz said.

In a few years, Diablo Canyon will close, part of a trend nationwide. The availability of cheap natural gas and greater energy efficiency has reduced demand for nuclear power in recent years. Add to that ongoing concerns about public safety, such as those raised by memories of disasters at nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan, Chernobyl in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) and Three Mile Island in the United States.

Nuclear is ‘cleaner’ than fossil fuels

Supporters of nuclear power plants say that when a reactor-based generating station closes, not enough wind and solar power is available to make up the difference. They lament that energy companies tend to turn instead to fossil fuels — coal and natural gas — which produce environmentally harmful emissions.

Zaitz and her co-worker Heather Matteson, a reactor operator, started Mothers for Nuclear, their effort to get the word out that nuclear power is clean, safe and better for the environment than some alternative energy sources.  

“I went into the plant very skeptical of nuclear and being scared of it,” said Matteson. “It took me six to seven years to really feel like this is something good for the environment. I don’t want people to take six to seven years to make that decision. We don’t have that long.”

Matteson, too, wears the uranium necklace as a conversation starter. “Nuclear is fun,” she said. Is there any radiation emitted by the pendant? “There’s slightly more than from a banana,” she conceded.

Women seen as powerful advocates

Industry experts say that women who work in nuclear power can be powerful advocates for nuclear. They can help change attitudes of other women who tend to be more skeptical than men about nuclear energy’s benefits.

At the recent U.S. Women in Nuclear conference in San Francisco, women working in the industry talked about how more should be done to make nuclear power’s case to the public, and how they may be the best suited to do it.

“As mothers, I think we also have an important role to play in letting the public know that we support nuclear for the future, for our children,” said Matteson. “And we don’t know other mothers supporting nuclear power in a vocal way. We thought there was a gap to fill.”

Young women say they look at careers in this industry because they are socially minded.

‘Do something good for the world’

“I went into this wanting to do something good for the world,” Lenka Kollar, business strategy director at NuScale, a firm in Oregon that designs and markets small modular reactors. “Wanting to bring power to people. There are still more than a billion people in the world who don’t have electricity.”

Critics of nuclear energy say it doesn’t matter who is promoting it.

“Using mothers’ voices to argue for a technology that is fundamentally dangerous and that has been demonstrated by disasters like Fukushima to be not safe for the communities that surround the power plants or even cities that are hundreds of miles away is disingenuous,” said Kendra Klein, a staff scientist with Friends of the Earth, an environmental group.

While the future of nuclear power in the United States may be uncertain, the women here say they have a positive story to tell.

 
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Nuclear power in the U.S. is under threat: power plants are closing and new construction is being abandoned. At a recent conference in San Francisco, women working in the industry talked about how more should be done to make nuclear power’s case to the public, and how they may be the best suited to do it. VOA’s Michelle Quinn attended the U.S. Women in Nuclear National Conference to find out more.
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