Humpback whale range extends into Papahānaumokuākea

It never made any sense that humpback whales would confine themselves by human political boundaries, and now research proves that indeed, they don't.

Humpbacks winter not only in the Main Hawaiian Islands, but their range extends right up the archipelago into the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And there are lots of whales up there.

For this bit of information, we can thank an electronic listening post called EAR, for ecological acousting recorder, about which, more here.

(Image: What an EAR looks like. Credit: NOAA.)

When these buoys were deployed to listen to marine life in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, researchers heard the haunting calls of humpback whales.

More of them in the middle waters of the region, and fewer in the colder waters of the northernmost atolls.

Not that they weren't there all along, but research cruises into those islands in winter are limited, because of the risk to vessels of being caught without shelter during storms. The islands and reefs beyond Kaua`i are either small or treacherous and offer little protection from powerful seas and winds. The only safe harbor in the region is the old Navy base at Midway Atoll.

Scientists with NOAA and the University of Hawai`i's Hawai`i Institute for Marine Biology conducted the research within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

In a press release, the team said there seem to be plenty of whales up there: “Humpback whale song was found to be prevalent throughout the NWHI and demonstrated trends very similar to those observed in the MHI.”

The research has just been published in Marine Ecology Progress series (Vol. 423: 261–268, 2011 doi: 10.3354/meps08959.)

Authors are University of Hawai`i researchers Marc O. Lammers, Pollyanna I. Fisher-Pool, Whitlow W. L. Au and Carl G. Meyer, and Kevin B. Wong and Russell E. Brainard of NOAA Fisheries' Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. You can find the paper online here.

They deployed nine of the EAR devices throughout the archipelago to see if they would detect whale singing, and they did.

“Song was found to be prevalent at Maro Reef, Lisianski Island, and French Frigate Shoals but was also recorded at Kure Atoll, Midway Atoll, and Pearl and Hermes Atoll,” they wrote.

Notably missing from the list are the islands nearest the main Hawaiian group, Nihoa and Necker/Mokumanamana. But the message, perhaps, is that they heard whale song wherever they put an EAR, and they just didn't put the devices at Nihoa and Mokumanamana, nor at Laysan and Gardner Pinnacles. No reason to think the whales are not there, too.

The research results add up to “strong evidence that humpback whales are common in the NWHI from late December to mid-May. Moreover, a comparison of the incidence of song on Oahu with the NWHI reveals that many locations show equivalence in song prevalence, suggesting whales use at least parts of the NWHI as a wintering ground much like the MHI.”

What isn't yet clear is whether the whales of Papahānaumokuākea are a distinct breeding group, or simply an extension of the main islands population.

And it's also not (yet) clear how many whales use the northern islands, which appear to have as much as twice as much shallow warm water habitat as the main islands.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Are nukes our energy answer? Are they any answer at all?

Nuclear energy, to some observers, is the obvious answer to the high cost of electricity and our community's vulnerability to oil supply disruptions.

(Image: The hull of the Russian floating nuclear plant, now under construction, the Akademik Lomonosov. Credit: Rosenergoatom)

Some have argued that nuclear energy is appropriate, that it's readily available, and that it's cheap.

For anyone who does a minimal amount of research, it seems clear that for small communities like Kauai, nuclear energy is none of those things, even ignoring the elephant in the room: the debate over safety and radioactive waste disposal.

First, it remains unconstitutional in Hawai'i to build a nuclear plant. (Here's the actual language from the state Constitution: “No nuclear fission power plant shall be constructed or radioactive material disposed of in the State without the prior approval by a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature.”)

Second, there is not available for purchase today a small (less than 100 megawatts) utility-configured nuclear plant. It's the Holy Grail of energy, and lots of companies are planning or designing them, but right now, you can't buy one, anywhere. (See this article in The Economist, and this article in the Wall Street Journal: )

Third, if there were one for purchase, it wouldn't be cheap. At a minimum, a plant twice the size of Kaua'i's entire grid is estimated to cost $5,000 per kilowatt to build, and that plant has not yet been built anywhere in the world, or even gone through permitting. (See the WSJ article above.) Other estimates have suggested a price that is multiples of that number.

There is a new international initiative to simply move nuclear power offshore. Russia is building a barge-mounted floating nuclear plant of 75 megawatts, the Akademik Lomonosov, which uses Russian maritime nuclear reactors. And we have previously written about the French proposal to put a nuclear plant on the ocean floor.

At a recent utility conference I attended, supporters of nuclear energy estimated permitting alone for a new nuclear plant in the United States could take 15 years. That's 2026 if we started right now.

Our energy needs are more pressing than that. Talking about nuclear in Hawai`i at this time is little more than a distraction.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2010

The new cars: What's mean, what's green?

The green car movement is advancing so fast that it can be hard to keep up.

We’ll discuss that further a little later on.

(Image: Bugatti Veyron, the fastest, most expensive and among the least fuel-efficient street cars in the world. Credit: www.bugatti.com)

If you don’t give a darn about green, and want to make some kind of statement by driving the most carbon-spewing mess of a vehicle you can, there are options.

GreenerCars.org has done us the favor of identifying the blackest of cars, its “meanest” as opposed to greenest car list.

What’s, from an environmental standpoint, the worst car in the world? According to GreenerCars, it’s the Bugatti Veyron. Makes your heart flutter how hot this car is. Its 1000 horsepower and 250-mile-an-hour top speed will cost you though. It’s also the most expensive street car in the world, at $1.7 million.

It gets 8 miles to the gallon in the city and 15 on the highway.

American cars take the next few “meanest” car slots: The Chevrolet Suburban K2500 and its twin the GMC Yukon XLK2500 is next, followed by the Dodge Ram 2500 Mega Cab. Another Chevy is in fourth, followed by a couple of Fords, the F250 and the F150 Raptor.

Everybody’s favorite bad guy, the Ford Expedition/Lincoln Navigator slides in at 12^th place on the mean list.

But if you insist on driving a car, and you don’t think life in the Islands is about helping damage the environment, there are, shall we say, less destructive options.

GreenerCars’ greenest vehicles of 2011 are, starting with the winner, the Honda Civic GX, Nissan Leaf, Smart ForTwo Cabriolet or Coupe, Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Insight, Ford Fiesta SFE, Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Hyundai Elantra, Mini Cooper, Toyota Yaris and Chevrolet Volt.

The Smart Fortwo electric actually beats them all, but GreenerCars doesn’t consider it eligible for the list because hardly any are available in the United States.

It’s a nice mix of power supply on the green list. You’ve got gasoline cars, natural gas cars, electric cars, hybrids of various kinds.

Of course, this isn’t all apples to apples. Some of the cars are two seaters, and the Honda CR-Z wins that one in automatic and the Mercedes Smart Fortwo Cabriolet wins the manual two-seater category.

For compact cars, the Honda Civic GX wins for automatics and the Chevrolet Cruze Eco for manuals.

Need a midsize wagon? It’s the Kia Rondo. A minivan? The Honda Odyssey.

Pickup trucks are uniformly ugly when it comes to mileage. For a standard pickup, the Ford F-150 FFV is the top automatic and the Nissan Frontier six-cylinder is the top manual, inching out the Ford Ranger. For compact pickups, it’s the Chevy Colorado auto and the Ford Ranger manual.

If you need details on these or any other car, see. http://www.greenercars.org/greenbook.htm.

GreenerCars is a project of ACEEE, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Here's their press release on the new car listings.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

French plan nuclear power plants on the seafloor

In the world of interesting ideas, here's one we hadn't thought of: Put nuclear power plants in the nearshore ocean.

Leave it to the French, who produce 75% of their electricity from nuclear power, to advance this idea.

(Image: A representation of the Flexblue power plant, from the DCNS website, http://en.dcnsgroup.com.)

One presumes that the nukes they're discussing would be placed in the relatively calm waters of the Mediterranean. In Hawaiian waters, recent hurricanes have been shown to scour the ocean floor as much as 60 feet down, and cause significant impacts even deeper.

The French plan is for these plants to be tethered "a few kilometers from shore" in water 60 to 100 meters (2-300 feet, roughly) deep.

France is calling the new proposal Flexblue. The developer is the French firm DCNS, which builds nuclear submarines for the French Navy. It is working with nuclear power plant builder AREVA, French electric utility firm EDF and French government research firm CEA.

Their plan is to design a movable nuclear plant—in essence a giant, tethered, propellorless nuclear submarine—that delivers power to shore via cable. It could be lifted with air bags to the surface for maintenance. It would produce 50 to 250 megawatts.

The plant's hull would be 300 feet long, about 40 feet around and shaped like a giant oxygen bottle. It would be movable, but would not have its own propulsion. A special ship would be used to transport it. Here is the DCNS website outline of the project: .

For this concept to ever be considered for Hawai'i, developers would require an unprecedented level of community approval. That's because of this line in the Hawai'i State Constitution: “No nuclear fission power plant shall be constructed or radioactive material disposed of in the State without the prior approval by a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature.”

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Golden gooney chick pix

The short-tailed albatross pair at Midway Atoll have produced the first chick of their species born outside Japan territory in recorded history.

The event is considered monumental by biologists, as the species, whose head and neck color gives them the nickname "golden gooney," is seriously endangered. More on the birds at our previous posts here and here.

The new chick was well protected by its parents from the recent rainstorms and wind, and appeared to be thriving, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists said.

Humans are being kept away from the area. The images were taken using long lenses and by two service biologists operating from cover, so the birds would not be bothered.

In each of these images the chick's head and beak are barely visible between or next to the parent's leg. The body is obscured within the shallow depression that forms the nest.

More images are available at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/sets/72157625522391142/with/5364606872/

The sex of the baby golden is not yet known. Those other birds in the images are mainly Laysan albatrosses. Laysan and black-footed albatrosses are the dominant members of their genus in the Hawaiian Island chain.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011