Alaska: State's
salmon industry continues uphill climb By WESLEY LOY - Alaska's
commercial salmon industry is undergoing big changes because
of powerful market shifts around the world, a fisheries expert
says.
The state's salmon industry
has struggled with lower prices and lost customers in recent
years because of competition from foreign, farm-raised salmon,
and that struggle continues, said Gunnar Knapp, a University
of Alaska Anchorage economist.
Some pockets of Alaska's complex
salmon fisheries are strengthening, with fishermen receiving
higher prices for their catches.
And while the overall value
of Alaska's salmon harvest has nearly doubled since the industry
hit bottom in 2002, the comeback is modest when measured against
the boom years of the late 1980s and early '90s, when the farming
industry took off, Knapp said.
On Thursday, the state Department
of Fish and Game issued its summary of this year's commercial
salmon season. At $309 million, the dockside payoff for the catch
was above the $279 million average seen during 1996-2005, but
this year's tally is $25 million less than fishermen received
last year. A major reason was the size of the catch, which at
142 million fish was 80 million fewer than the record catch in
2005. - More...
Tuesday AM - November 07, 2006
Alaska: In
Alaska, you will probably meet a bear By CRAIG MEDRED - Back
in the tall grass just north of the U.S. Forest Service public-use
cabin here, a yard-sized excavation of sod and dirt on the edge
of an old avalanche run-out told an interesting story.
Sometime during the summer,
a grizzly bear had camped on a moose kill within a couple hundred
yards of a popular trail that runs east from the bridge across
Crescent Creek to the cabin.
The torn-up ground surrounding
the now-deserted cache was littered with moose hair. Here and
there a few bones remained: a rib, a chunk of scapula, some unidentifiable
fragments.
Judging by the size of the
body parts and the volume of hair, an adult moose had died. There
is no way to know how long the bear was on the kill afterwards.
But if it had taken down an adult moose, or gotten lucky and
stumbled on the carcass of one killed in an avalanche, the bear
would likely have been guarding the spoils for days. - More...
Tuesday AM - November 07, 2006
National: Labs
look at recycling weapons-grade plutonium for energy By SUE
VORENBERG - Finding a way to get rid of 34 tons of extra weapons-grade
plutonium poses an interesting challenge.
The United States and Russia
- under an arms reduction treaty - can't just drop it off at
the dump or toss it in the garbage.
And the people who might want
to take it off their hands - say, North Korea and Iran - probably
wouldn't do anything nice with it.
One option in the United States
is to carefully treat it, then store it at the nuclear waste
dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, if it ever opens.
Or, if you're one of New Mexico's
national laboratories, you can look at doing something even stranger
with it - recycling it into commercial power. - More...
Tuesday AM - November 07, 2006
Business - Economy: Ethanol
fever fires up farmers in heartland By DAN BROWNING, TONY
KENNEDY, CHRIS SERRES - The gleaming $110 million ethanol plant
is still rising over their cornfields, but locals in Heron Lake,
Minn. say it's already the best thing to happen here in decades.
Farmers and other area residents
plunked down a minimum of $20,000 each to buy stock in the plant,
and the electric co-op kicked in a $740,000 loan. The Hotel Whiskey
Bar & Grill fills up on some nights with the plant's construction
workers. And Mayor John Hay figures the plant will triple his
city's tax base, making it possible to upgrade area roads and
fix the leaky roof on the city-owned nursing home.
"If they didn't have that
ethanol plant, there wouldn't be much of anything going on here,"
said Barb Pohlman, who sells vegetables in town from the back
of her pickup truck.
Ethanol mania is sweeping through
Heron Lake and many towns like it across the Corn Belt. Investors
are spending billions in rural communities, sparking a wild rush
to secure land, an industry movement to alter environmental standards
and a rash of fierce bidding by communities desperate for their
own plant.
Two decades after farmers began
mashing their corn into ethanol, the clear, odorless liquid is
seen by many as the best chance for America to lessen its dependence
on foreign oil. - More...
Tuesday AM - November 07, 2006
Business - Economy: Experts
debate best ethanol source By ADAM WILMOTH - Record
gasoline prices experienced over the past year have helped drive
interest in alternative fuels. But it is still unclear as to
which option is best for the country.
Despite some concerns of relative
energy inefficiency, ethanol is the early leading alternative.
Much of ethanol's popularity is because the fuel is commercially
available, requires - at most - only moderate adjustments to
existing engines and can be blended with traditional gasoline.
But the debate continues as to whether the more popular corn-based
ethanol is the best option.
President Bush in his "addicted
to oil" speech earlier this year touted switchgrass and
other so-called "cellulosic" plants as one of the key
components of the country's effort to reduce its dependence on
foreign oil.
If ethanol is to become a major
transportation fuel nationwide, the country eventually must move
beyond the corn-based product, Oklahoma Energy Secretary David
Fleischaker said.
"If we took every stick
of corn that we grow and turn it into fuel and eat none of it,
we're talking about producing about 12 percent of the 140 billion
gallons of gasoline that we burn annually," he said. "And
we're not going to turn every stick of corn into fuel. So to
make a dent, we have to go beyond corn. We have to go to cellulosic."
- More...
Tuesday AM - November 07, 2006
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