Effects of Oil Spill
Basically, it affects fishes, turtles and mammals (whales and dolphins) through their digestive system (damaged organs) as they take in oil in terms of oil vapour or eat oil-coated preys.
It affects their young too as mammals take in milk from their parent.
For mammals with obvious fur like otter and seal, it affects their ability to swim as their fur gets "sticky". For otter's case, it's worse as they are low in body fats and rely on air between fur to keep warm (air is a poor conductor of heat).
For birds, oil stick to their feathers and affect their flight abilities as well as their abilities to keep warm as feathers trap air between and keep birds warm.
Generally for SA1, you're not dealing with pollution full scale. You only need to know water pollution brings harm to marine lifeforms and promote bacterial or algae growth (dumping of industrial waste and erosion of fertiliser and pesticide).
Hope this helps.
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May 5, 2010
KL gives go-ahead for nuclear power plant
Energy ministry to look for suitable sites; plant slated to operate from 2021
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia could set up its first nuclear power plant in 10 to 15 years.
Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Peter Chin Fah Kui yesterday said that the government has approved the setting-up of a nuclear power plant, slated to start operating from 2021.
He declined to reveal where the first plant might be located, or the total power that could be delivered, but said that his ministry has been given the go-ahead by the Economic Council to start identifying suitable sites.
He added that the government might seek to obtain technology from South Korea, China, France or Japan.
'Building of the first plant needs a lead time of at least 10 years,' he said at an environment conference. 'We need to look at the safety aspects, human resources and the location.'
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Datuk Seri Chin added, has the final say on whether the plant could be built.
An aide to the minister, however, said that officials have yet to make a decision on whether to ask the IAEA for approval to build a plant.
Prime Minister Najib Razak also appeared to indicate that Malaysia's plans on nuclear power were not firmed up yet. He also gave a longer time frame.
The Prime Minister wrote in his blog yesterday that the government was studying the possible use of nuclear energy as an efficient and cost-effective means for electricity generation.
'If we press ahead with nuclear, 12 to 15 years could elapse before energy is produced using small reactors,' he wrote.
Malaysia has long debated over whether to turn to nuclear energy as an alternative to coal and natural gas, which most of its electricity supply comes from.
While fears remain over safety, the government has repeatedly warned that the cost of relying on both commodities is expected to spiral in the decades ahead.
Yesterday, Mr Chin stressed this point again.
'Nuclear energy is the only viable option towards our long-term energy needs,' he said. 'Our energy mix is rather unhealthy. We are depending too much on coal and oil.'
While nuclear plants involve high start-up costs, the minister said it was more cost- and energy-efficient than building more coal-fired power plants.
A nuclear power reactor typically costs S$3 billion to S$5 billion for each gigawatt of electrical generating capacity. Proponents of nuclear energy, however, say that it is cleaner and cheaper in the long run, and is a viable alternative to traditional sources of energy which are drying up.
Malaysia's state utility Tenaga had earlier said that it could build the country's first 1,000MW nuclear power plant at a cost of RM10 billion (S$4.3 billion).
Several South-east Asian countries have announced plans to build reactors in the next 10 to 15 years, including Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Philippines is also looking at resurrecting the mothballed Bataan plant, which was built in 1986 but never started. Even Singapore has not ruled out turning to nuclear power.
THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Asteroid may hold secret to Earth's water
The Straits Times 1 May 2010
Discovery of water in dry asteroid likely to throw light on planet's past
The discovery could help explain where early Earth first got its water.
It also makes asteroids more attractive to explore, dovetailing with President Barack Obama's announcement that astronauts should visit an asteroid. And it even muddies the definition between comets and asteroids, potentially triggering a Pluto-like scientific spat over what to call these solar system bodies.
Two teams of scientists observed asteroid 24 Themis, one of the bigger rocks in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, with temperatures of around -73 deg C.
This asteroid has an extensive but thin frosty coating, and is likely replenished by a reservoir of frozen water deep inside rock once thought to be dry and desolate, scientists reported in two studies in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature.
One team led by Professor Humberto Campins of the
Astronomers have long theorised that hydrogen and oxygen and bits of water locked in clay are in asteroids, but this is the first solid evidence.
Furthermore, scientists found organic molecules, similar to what may have started life on Earth, Prof Campins said.
'This asteroid holds clues to our past and how the solar system and water on Earth may have originated and it also has clues to our future with exploration of near-Earth asteroids,' he said.
When it formed billions of years ago, Earth was dry, scientists say, and the water came from crashing comets that are essentially icy snowballs.
But comets have been found to carry more heavy hydrogen than the water in our oceans, said Mr Donald Yeomans, manager of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Near Earth Object Programme office. Icy asteroids between Mars and Jupiter might have the right heavy hydrogen ratio to match what is on Earth, said Mr Yeomans, who was not involved in the studies.
Normally, the ice on the asteroid should have escaped Themis as a gas over thousands of years, but it is still there, Prof Campins said. That means there is likely a supply of ice inside the rock, replenishing the surface, he said.
And if that is the case for other similar asteroids, then it would be a boon for visiting astronauts, who could use the water to drink and to help make fuel.
The icy asteroid also blurs differences between them and the comet. The general definition has been that asteroids are dry rocks and comets icy snowballs.
Now it seems to be more of a continuum of dry and icy with not much difference between the two, Prof Campins and others said.
And that, said Professor Andrew Rivkin of Johns Hopkins University, co-author of the other study in Nature, could wind up another controversy like the debate a few years ago about whether Pluto was a planet.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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