Tropical Storm Gabrielle's remnants and Systems 99L and 98L are all captured in one image from NOAA's GOES-East satellite at 10:45 EDT (14:45 GMT) in this NASA handout picture taken September 6, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/NASA GOES Project/HandoutTuesday, 10 September 2013
Shell to negotiate with Nigerians over oil spill compensation
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1 of 2. A Shell logo is seen at a petrol station in London May 15, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Stefan WermuthBy Estelle Shirbon
LONDON | Thu Sep 5, 2013 7:08pm EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - Compensation talks will begin in Nigeria on Monday between lawyers for Royal Dutch Shell and for 15,000 Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods were destroyed by oil spills from pipelines operated by the company.
The Nigerians launched a suit against Shell at the High Court in London in March 2012, seeking millions of dollars in compensation for two oil spills in 2008 that polluted the waterways of the Bodo fishing communities in the Niger Delta.
The legal action is being closely watched by the industry and by environmentalists for precedents that could have an impact on other big pollution claims against oil majors.
A vast maze of mangrove swamps and creeks, the Niger Delta is home to communities of subsistence farmers and fishermen living alongside the multi-billion-dollar oil industry.
"They want to be fairly compensated for their losses from the time the spill took place until the oil is cleaned up and the Bodo Creek is returned to its natural state," said Martyn Day of the Nigerians' London law firm Leigh Day.
A Shell spokesman confirmed that talks would begin on Monday between Leigh Day and lawyers for the Anglo-Dutch firm. They will take place in Port Harcourt, the main city in the Delta, and will be attended by representatives of the Bodo communities.
The region has been plagued by a range of problems including sabotage, kidnappings of oil workers for ransom, theft of crude from pipelines, armed rebellions, and conflict between communities over clean-up contracts or compensation deals.
Shell accepts responsibility for the Bodo spills but the two sides disagree about the volume spilt and the number of local people who lost their livelihoods as a result. A previous round of compensation talks broke down in 2012, before the lawsuit.
"CRIMINAL ACTIVITY"
"We're hopeful that an acceptable agreement can be reached with the Bodo community," the Shell spokesman said. "Such an agreement would provide fair compensation, as well as a way forward on cleaning up the entire area affected by oil spills, whether caused by the two 2008 operational incidents, or by criminal activity."
Citing independent experts, Leigh Day says up to 600,000 barrels of crude were spilt, which would make it one of the worst spills in history. The volume spilt in Alaska in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster was put at 257,000 barrels.
But Shell, citing a report by a joint investigative team not controlled by the firm, puts the volume spilt in the two original incidents at just 4,100 barrels.
Shell accepts that a significantly higher volume of oil was spilt later but says this was due to other factors including sabotage. It has also complained that its clean-up teams were at times denied access to sites by local groups.
A Shell spokesman said the talks would focus on the number of people affected, the actual financial loss suffered, and the amount of time for which those affected should be compensated.
The Bodo case is particularly troublesome for Shell because the area is in Ogoniland, a part of the Delta that was the scene of one of the company's worst public relations disasters.
In 1995, nine Ogoni activists including the environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had been campaigning against Shell's activities in his homeland, were tried on trumped-up charges and hanged by the then military government of Sani Abacha.
Although Shell was not directly responsible for the Ogoni deaths, it was widely blamed for cooperating with Abacha's brutal and corrupt administration.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Canada sees path for Keystone but won't talk details
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Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver speaks during the IHS CERAWeek energy conference in Houston March 6, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Richard CarsonBy Patrick Rucker
WASHINGTON | Mon Sep 9, 2013 6:07pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada will do more in the global fight against climate change as the nation develops its vast oil sands resources and tries to win backing for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, the country's energy minister said on Monday.
The proposed pipeline that would link oil sands fields in western Canada to Gulf Coast refiners should come in tandem with plans to curtail carbon dioxide pollution, said Canada's energy minister Joe Oliver after a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz .
Canada had to join the fight against climate change as a global citizen and "to have the social license to continue to develop our resources," Oliver told reporters at the Washington embassy.
That conciliatory tone might ease relations with the White House, analysts said, but Canada will struggle getting the pipeline approved now that President Barack Obama's supporters have framed its rejection as essential to his environmental legacy.
"Climate change concerns are now at the heart of Obama's Keystone thinking and that's a problem since Canada is not living up to its own commitments on the issue," said Clare Demerse of the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank.
CANADA LETTER
On Friday, Canadian media reported that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had recently made an overture to President Obama to win his backing on Keystone.
In a letter late last month, Harper suggested the two nations, who are neighbors and global allies, should coordinate their efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.
Oliver would not comment on reports of the letter but he said the Canadian government could already boast about its efforts to curb emissions.
"We don't regard the proposed policies as concessions," Oliver said, referring to a plan to curb the use of coal in power generation and an unfinished plan to ease emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Early this year, officials said a detailed plan on limiting pollution from the oil and gas industry would come this summer but they have recently been noncommittal.
The Canadian government expects an increase in oil sands production to more than triple emissions from that source over 2005 levels by 2020 - erasing predicted gains from reductions in coal-fired power plants. (Full report: See link.reuters.com/dyz82v)
In 2009, the United States and Canada each promised to bring their greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
But Canada is on track to miss that target, the government says, and Oliver offered no concrete plans on how policymakers would reach their goal.
"We intend to get there but we didn't say we're getting there instantly," he said on a conference call after the press conference.
OBAMA DECISION
In a climate policy speech in June, Obama said the $5.3 billion pipeline that would carry 830,000 barrels per day from northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast would only be approved if it "does not significantly exacerbate" climate change.
On past visits to Washington, Oliver has been an energetic booster for the project in public appearances and private meetings with lawmakers and other officials.
Oliver had a more subdued agenda on Monday with only a visit with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on his agenda.
"I haven't been given a timeline on a (Keystone) decision," Oliver said, noting that the State Department is reviewing the proposal.
The ministers discussed possible points of collaboration such as carbon capture and storage technology and electric grid reliability, DOE spokesperson Lindsey Geisler said by e-mail.
(Reporting By Patrick Rucker. Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner in Washington.)
Idaho mudslide unleashed by monster storm closes key highway
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By Laura Zuckerman
Sat Sep 7, 2013 12:03am EDT
n">(Reuters) - Idaho highway crews worked Friday evening to clean up debris that forced the closure of a major highway near Boise after a powerful thunderstorm the day before brought flash floods, mudslides and golf ball-sized hail.
A "supercell" storm that slammed into southwestern Idaho late Thursday afternoon unleashed wind gusts up to 58 miles per hour near Boise, the capital, and triggered a flood in nearby Owyhee County that swept away a vehicle whose driver was later rescued, said National Weather Service meteorologist Valerie Mills.
"It's the strongest storm I've seen in my 14 years here," said Mills, who is based in Boise.
Supercells are considered the most dangerous of four categories of storms because of the extreme weather they generate. Their massive size and a powerful internal rotation that creates fierce updrafts can spawn high winds, tornadoes, large hail and downpours producing flash floods and mudslides, Mills said.
Landslides northeast of Boise temporarily trapped two vehicles even as downed trees, boulders and torrents of mud pounded a key highway that connects the state capital to the mountain communities of central Idaho, keeping it closed amid clean-up operations expected to wrap up Saturday morning.
The supercell dumped 1.5 inches of rain in 30 minutes in Nampa, just west of Boise, and nearly 1 inch of rain in 20 minutes on a nearby resort town, Mills said. At its peak, golf ball-sized hail hammered traffic on the only interstate that links Boise to eastern Idaho and Salt Lake City.
The storm, which erupted at about 4:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, smashed records with 7,781 lightning strikes in the 14 counties of southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon monitored by the Boise weather service office, she said.
Mills said the weather service on Thursday received two unconfirmed sightings of tornadoes in Idaho, a state that has averaged fewer than a dozen twisters a year since 1953.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Eric Walsh)
Harper offers Obama emissions deal to win Keystone: CBC
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Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper (L) walks with U.S. President Barack Obama after a G8 summit group photograph was taken at the Lough Erne golf resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland June 18, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Andrew WinningOTTAWA | Fri Sep 6, 2013 4:21pm EDT
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, trying to win U.S. backing for the Keystone XL pipeline, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama proposing joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector, CBC News said on Friday.
The White House has not responded to the letter, which was sent in late August, CBC said, although Harper met Obama briefly during the just-ended G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Obama has the final say over whether to let the pipeline cross from Canada into the United States and has said he would only approve it if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution".
The $5.3 billion pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels per day and stretch from the tar sands of northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, is being proposed by TransCanada Corp.
Canada's Conservative government is actively pushing development of pipelines to move oil sands crude to new markets. Green groups oppose Keystone XL because they say it will encourage expansion of production in the oil sands, which is carbon-intensive.
Harper's office told Reuters it would not comment on correspondence between leaders, but said Harper raises Keystone with Obama every time he speaks with him.
"The Keystone project is in both countries' national interests and will create jobs and economic growth on both sides of the border while increasing North American energy security," Harper spokesman Stephen Lecce said, repeating the government's traditional line.
"Canada and the U.S. have integrated economies and oil and gas sectors, which underscores the importance of continuing to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Lecce added.
The Canadian government has imposed greenhouse gas regulations in a number of sectors, but it has missed its goal of setting rules for Canada's burgeoning oil and gas sector by mid-2013.
It is this sector Harper is offering to work with Obama on, if that is what is needed to gain approval for Keystone, CBC said.
Obama said in a New York Times interview in July that Canada could do more to mitigate carbon emissions.[ID:nL1N0FY006] Canadian officials have privately expressed frustration that Obama has not specified what he wants in return for Keystone approval.
Environmentalists, opposed to the development of the huge oil sands deposits in landlocked Alberta, want Washington to block the pipeline, while Obama has dismissed Keystone's potential to create jobs.
Sierra Club Canada Executive Director John Bennett scoffed: "I don't believe for a moment that Prime Minister Harper is serious and neither should President Obama. The Harper government has done nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
(Reporting by Randall Palmer; editing by Jackie Frank, Janet Guttsman and Peter Galloway)
Economic woes may mute impact of U.N. report saying warming manmade
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Vehicles during a hazy winter day in Beijing January 12, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Jason LeeBy Alister Doyle and Nina Chestney
OSLO/LONDON | Fri Sep 6, 2013 9:17am EDT
OSLO/LONDON (Reuters) - The strongest scientific warning to date that global warming is man-made may have a muted impact when it is released later this month with many governments more focused on nursing weak economies than on fixing the planet.
Many are also still smarting from a failure to agree a global pact to fight climate change at a summit in Copenhagen in 2009 and wary of making bold promises under a new timetable meant to agree a global U.N. deal in 2015.
Even so, the planned release of a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Stockholm on September 26 - the main guide for government action - may mark the start of a revival of attention on global warming.
"Climate politics has been in a coma since Copenhagen," said Yvo de Boer, former head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, who led work at Copenhagen and now works at auditors KPMG. "I really hope the report can jolt us out of that coma."
A draft of the IPCC report seen by Reuters, which still has to be reviewed, raises the probability that climate change since the 1950s is mainly caused by human activities to "extremely likely", or at least 95 percent, from "very likely", or over 90 percent, in the last report in 2007.
Past IPCC reports have spurred U.N. talks with ever stronger warnings that greenhouse gases will cause more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas. The impact may be less dramatic this time, partly because climate science is better known.
"Climate change is not taking us by surprise any longer," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme. "The report as such will not be an awakening moment."
But he said the report, the first of four about the climate in the next year, would underscore risks of inaction.
"I think that will be the focus of the public debate. What are we going to do to catch up with the lost time?" he said.
AUSTERITY
Among past reports, a 1995 IPCC report that concluded it was more than 50 percent likely that mankind was to blame for climate change helped spur talks that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting emissions by developed nations.
The 2007 IPCC report spurred two years of negotiations that led to a summit in Copenhagen where world leaders failed to clinch a global deal. Governments agreed two years ago to have another try, giving themselves until 2015.
Todd Stern, U.S. President Barack Obama's climate envoy, said there was "substantial political will" around the world to reach a deal in 2015 for limiting emissions and that "whatever comes out of the IPCC will only accentuate that desire."
"It's too early to say," Stern told Reuters when asked if Washington would reaffirm a 2009 pathway for steep cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and 42 percent by 2030.
The IPCC will face extra scrutiny after errors were found in the 2007 report, led by an exaggeration of the melt of Himalayan glaciers. A review by outside experts found that the main conclusions were unaffected.
Richard Klein, a senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, said the economic crisis would overshadow the report but remained hopeful that economic recovery could improve the prospects for a global deal in 2015.
Even so, austerity makes it hard for developed nations to keep a promise of increasing aid to developing countries to a promised $100 billion a year by 2020, from $10 billion in 2012.
"An age of austerity has slowed down the international sources of climate finance which are part of a grand bargain," said Rachel Kyte, vice president of the World Bank for sustainable development.
Even though climate change has taken a back seat to the financial crisis, opinion polls indicate it is a top concern.
In a poll by the Pew Research Center in June, 54 percent of almost 40,000 respondents worldwide rated climate change a "major threat", higher than percentages for other worries led by international financial instability and Islamist extremism.
Tropical Storm Humberto strengthens near Cape Verde
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MIAMI | Mon Sep 9, 2013 5:58pm EDT
MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Humberto strengthened as it swept past the Cape Verde islands on Monday and was expected to grow into the first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The storm sprang to life early on Monday south of Cape Verde, a country of small rocky isles off West Africa with a population of about 531,000. It won independence from Portugal in 1975.
Humberto lashed the southern Cape Verde islands with rain and wind gusts as it moved past them but by late afternoon all tropical storm warnings had been lifted.
Humberto's top winds had strengthened to 50 miles per hour, up from 40 mph on Monday morning.
The storm was moving west and was expected to swing to the north over open waters, strengthening into a hurricane with sustained winds of at least 74 mph on Tuesday.
It is not expected to pose any further threat to land, nor is there a chance it would threaten energy interests in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the hurricane center.
Humberto is the eighth tropical storm of the Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.
The season is on track to be above average for tropical storm formation. But so far this year, shearing winds and patches of dry, dusty air have prevented any Atlantic storms from strengthening into hurricanes.
The first hurricane of the season usually forms by August 10. Since the dawn of the satellite era in the mid-1960s, the latest date for the first hurricane to arrive was set in 2002 when Hurricane Gustav made its debut on September 11.
If Humberto achieves hurricane status any time after 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, it would replace Gustav as the modern-day record holder, the forecasters in Miami said.
(Reporting by Jane Sutton and Tom Brown; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Mohammad Zargham)
Tropical Storm Humberto forms south of Cape Verde: NHC
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Tropical storm Humberto (lower R) and the remnants of tropical storm Gabrielle near the Bahamas are shown in this image provided by NOAA's GOES-East satellite and captured September 9, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/NASA GOES Project/Handout via ReutersAtlantic hurricane season - a record-breaking dud?
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By Tom Brown
MIAMI | Sat Sep 7, 2013 8:04am EDT
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics.
As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades.
"It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com).
"Virtually all the (forecast) groups were calling for above-normal hurricanes and intensive hurricanes and we haven't even had a hurricane at all, with the season half over," he said.
With records going back to 1851, Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center, said there had been only 17 years when the first Atlantic hurricane formed after September 4.
The all-time record was set in 1905, he said, when the first hurricane materialized on October 8.
In an average season the first hurricane shows up by August 10, usually followed by a second hurricane on August 28 and the first major hurricane by September 4.
Since the dawn of the satellite era in the mid-1960s, Feltgen said the latest date for the first hurricane to arrive was set by Gustav when it made its debut on September 11, 2002.
If this year's first hurricane comes anytime after 8 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, it would replace Gustav as the modern-day record holder, Feltgen said.
Seven named storms have been spawned by the 2013 season so far, including Fernand, which killed 13 people in central Mexico late last month.
Most of the storms have been small, weak systems, however, proving an embarrassment to experts who had predicted an active season in reports that are eagerly awaited by the insurance and energy industries as well as many coastal homeowners.
"Statistical models can generally reasonably well replicate hurricane activity ... but there are always going to be years when you bust," said Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist who heads a team that issues one the most closely watched long-range hurricane forecasts.
"We issue our final seasonal forecast in early August. But if we did put out a mid-season update, I would certainly back down from the prediction considerably," he said.
Colorado State University slightly lowered its seasonal forecast on August 2. But it still said 2013 would see above-average activity, with eight hurricanes and three that develop into major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.
Other prominent forecasts, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), were predicting an "above normal" season last month. An average season has six hurricanes.
'A HEAD SCRATCHER'
The jury is still out on what exactly has put such a damper this year over the Atlantic basin and the Caribbean, where tens of millions of people live in hurricane danger zones.
Tuesday marks the statistical "peak day" of the season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, and researchers say significant amounts of dry air and wind shear have helped keep a lid on hurricane formation.
The El Nino weather phenomenon - a warming of the tropical Pacific - which is part of the mix of unstable ingredients that can affect hurricane formation, is also not a factor this year, making the lack of storm activity harder to explain.
"It's certainly a head scratcher," said Masters, who said he thought wind shear had been near normal this year and warmer than average sea temperatures in the Atlantic favored storms.
He noted that dry air, from Africa as well as rarely mentioned flows associated with an extreme drought in northeast Brazil, may be a factor "helping to shut down this year's hurricane season."
Forecasters say a system expected to emerge off the coast of Africa may strengthen into a hurricane by early next week. But whatever happens in the coming days, Feltgen cautioned it was still too early to write off 2013 as a year when tropical weather was unpredictable.
"We are at mid-point of the six-month hurricane season," he said. "It is a mistake to believe that the second half of the season would resemble the first half," he said.
The first hurricane in 2001, Erin, only formed on September 9, Feltgen said. "That season ended with 15 named storms including nine hurricanes, four of which became major hurricanes."
(Reporting by Tom Brown; editing by Christopher Wilson)
Ohio Davis-Besse reactor moves step closer to new license
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n">(Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said there were no safety issues that would preclude a 20-year license renewal for FirstEnergy Corp's 894-megawatt Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio.
The NRC staff issued the findings as part of its final safety evaluation report released Friday.
The renewal of the Davis-Besse operating license is controversial in part because the reactor was the site of what the NRC has called one of the most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States.
In 2002, workers discovered corrosion had eaten a hole in the plant's reactor vessel head, which kept the unit shut until 2004. Although the hole did not hurt anyone, the NRC fined FirstEnergy more than $5 million for the actions that led to the corrosion.
Davis-Besse is a pressurized-water reactor located approximately 20 miles east of Toledo.
The current operating license expires April 22, 2017. FirstEnergy submitted its license renewal application to the NRC on August 27, 2010.
The NRC said the final safety report "is a significant milestone in the license renewal review process," which proceeds along two tracks - one for safety issues and another for environmental issues.
The NRC said its staff is still reviewing the environmental part of the Davis-Besse application.
The NRC said it will not make a final licensing decision on any reactor until it completes its waste confidence rulemaking for the long-term storage of nuclear waste, currently scheduled for September 2014.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
China's Sinopec to produce cleaner gasoline from October
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BEIJING | Fri Sep 6, 2013 6:56am EDT
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Sinopec Corp will produce lower sulfur gasoline from October, three months ahead of an official mandate, as part of a national effort to clear up the smoggy air of Chinese cities.
Except for two subsidiary plants that are undergoing maintenance, the top Asian refiner will cut sulfur in all its gasoline production from 150 parts per million (ppm) to 50 ppm from October 1, a company official said.
The new standard, national IV, is similar to Euro IV.
China, the world's second-largest oil consumer that burns roughly two million barrels per day of gasoline, rolled out in 2011 the national IV standard for gasoline and set a January 2014 deadline to make it applicable nationally.
Despite slowing economic growth, Chinese demand for gasoline has expanded much faster than diesel this year, thanks to strong growth in car sales.
Subsidiary plants in Fujian and Hainan will move to the new grade in November after overhauls, the company official said.
Sinopec will also start to provide National V gasoline, of 10 ppm sulfur or less, in 15 major cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou from October. Capital city Beijing was the first to use grade V in May 2012.
The company has from end of May cut the sulfur content of all of its diesel production to a maximum 350 ppm. Emissions from lower-quality diesel are among the main culprits for urban air pollution.
($1 = 6.1199 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting By Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Hunter's campfire sparked California blaze that scorched Yosemite
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1 of 3. Firefighters burn a fire break at the Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park in this September 1, 2013 handout photo.
Credit: Reuters/Mike McMillan/USFS/HandoutBy Laila Kearney
SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Sep 5, 2013 10:06pm EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A monster blaze that has blackened an area larger than Dallas in the rugged northern California forests in and around Yosemite National Park started from an illegal campfire a hunter built and let grow out of control, fire managers said on Thursday.
The precise origins of the so-called Rim Fire, which erupted nearly three weeks ago in the Stanislaus National Forest west of Yosemite, remained under investigation, and no arrests have been made, the U.S. Forest Service said.
But the campfire that sparked the conflagration, now the fourth-largest California blaze on record, was built in defiance of Forest Service restrictions imposed at the time due to dangerously hot, dry conditions in the area, officials said.
Whether the hunter deemed to be the culprit will face criminal charges depends on a variety of factors, including the degree of carelessness or neglect determined by investigators, said Forest Service spokesman Ray Mooney.
Beyond saying the fire began "when a hunter allowed an illegal fire to escape," authorities declined to comment on evidence linking the hunter to the blaze. The individual has not been publicly identified.
The Rim Fire, named for a popular local lookout spot called Rim of the World, has charred more than 237,000 acres, or 370 square miles (958 square kilometers), of timber and chaparral since it erupted August 17 in an area known as Jawbone Ridge in a remote corner of the national forest.
Firefighting costs there have run $81 million to date, with some 5,000 personnel assigned to battle the blaze at its peak.
With a footprint bigger than the land mass of Dallas, Texas, the blaze ranks as the largest of dozens of wildfires that have raged across several states in the drought-parched West this year, straining U.S. firefighting resources.
Dozens of homes and cabins near Yosemite have been destroyed and nearly 2,500 dwellings in the region were still threatened by the blaze on Thursday. But no serious injuries have been reported, and most evacuation orders have been lifted as firefighters tightened their grip on the flames.
As of Thursday, ground crews armed with hand tools and chainsaws, and backed by bulldozers, water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers with payloads of chemical retardant, had cut containment lines around 80 percent of the fire's perimeter.
But fire managers say they expect the blaze to continue burning for several more weeks, and warned that a resumption of gusty winds "could challenge containment lines."
Less than a third of the total burned acreage lies inside Yosemite, and firefighters there have succeeded in limiting most of the damage to wilderness and back-country areas in the park's remote northwestern corner.
Several campgrounds, numerous trails and one of the four main entrances to the park have been closed by the fire. But the most popular portions have remained open to the public, including the scenic Yosemite Valley area famed for its towering granite rock formations, waterfalls and meadows.
Nevertheless, park officials say droves of visitors who typically crowd Yosemite in late summer have noticeably diminished. And Yosemite-area businesses say the region's tourist economy has been hit hard a year after an outbreak of hantavirus in the park frightened away many park visitors.
Word that investigators had traced the fire's origins to a hunter's campfire came a day after authorities ruled out the possibility that the Rim Fire somehow began from an illegal marijuana cultivation site in the national forest.
Speculation that a pot farm might be to blame grew out of videotaped comments made by a local fire department chief during an August 23 community meeting, but fire officials again denied any such connection to the blaze, or to the hunter in question.
"There is no indication the hunter was involved with illegal marijuana cultivation on public lands and no marijuana cultivation sites were located near the origin of the fire," the Forest Service said in its statement.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Ken Wills)
Chinese chemical company apologizes for fish-killing toxic spill
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BEIJING | Fri Sep 6, 2013 6:49am EDT
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Shenzhen-listed company identified by authorities as being responsible for a toxic spill that killed thousands of river fish apologized on Friday and said it would punish those responsible.
Hubei Shuanghuan Science and Technology Stock Co., a manufacturer of inorganic chemicals, said it began a week-long production halt on Wednesday and blamed the spill on a sewage release "that exceeded standard levels."
"The company apologizes to impacted parties and the vast majority of investors for this incident," it said.
The company said however, that it was not the only one to blame for the pollution affecting a 40-kilometer (25-mile) stretch of the Fu river, which lies near the heavily populated city of Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.
It said its own investigation found other companies in the area had discharged improperly treated sewage and nearby farms failed to control the flow of animal waste into the river.
Hubei Shuanghuan came under fire from the provincial environmental protection agency when workers unearthed the dead fish, saying ammonia levels in the river had risen far beyond acceptable levels, China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency reported.
Environmental degradation has proven to be one of the hazards of China's rapid economic growth. In January, choking smog enveloped Beijing for more than a week and in March thousands of dead pigs were discovered floating in a river that provides water to Shanghai.
China's new leadership has identified pollution, long a source of public discontent, as one of its top challenges and has vowed to more strictly police industrial companies that have been given free rein to pollute by local governments eager to maintain jobs and revenue.
(Reporting By Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Matt Driskill)
G20 countries agree to phase down potent greenhouse gas
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By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 6, 2013 1:42pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders attending the Group of 20 summit of the world's biggest economies in St. Petersburg, Russia, agreed on Friday to phase down the use of certain potent greenhouse gases known to damage the climate.
The White House cited the agreement to cooperate on phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and some industrial equipment, as one of the "most significant agreements" of the summit.
"This commitment marks an important step forward toward addressing HFCs - highly potent greenhouse gases that are rapidly increasing in use - through the proven mechanism of the Montreal Protocol," the White House said in a fact sheet.
Addressing HFCs also has climate benefits and can reduce as much as 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent between now and 2050, the White House said.
The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty established in 1987 that targets the production of various substances known to deplete the earth's ozone layer. The specifics of the agreement will be discussed at the next meeting of the protocol in October in Bangkok.
Separately, China and the United States, the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, agreed to take new steps on an HFC phasedown following there June agreement to cooperate.
The two countries agreed to set up a contact group to explore specific issues such as financial and technology support for developing countries under the Montreal Protocol, an step that marked the start of formal use of the protocol to phase down HFCs.
John Podesta, chairman of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said the U.S.-China move was a milestone in "stepping outside of the historically deadlocked U.N. climate negotiations to tackle HFCs."
President Barack Obama's climate action plan, announced in June, calls on the U.S. to show international leadership on climate change.
Part of the effort involves the United States working with countries to push to include HFCs within the Montreal Protocol.
The administration has also called on countries to stop investing in coal-fired power plants overseas as part of its international climate strategy.
On the eve of the G-20 summit on Wednesday five Scandinavian countries backed Obama's call to end the financing of overseas coal plants.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici, editing by Ros Krasny and Jackie Frank)
Tropical storm a certainty off Mexico: NHC
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n">(Reuters) - A low pressure area near Tampico, Mexico, now has a 100 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest bulletin.
A tropical depression advisory will be issued in the next hour or two, the NHC said.
In its previous advisory, the NHC said the system had a 20 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.
(Reporting by Arpan Varghese in Bangalore; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Finland seeks lessons after Fukushima on nuclear complacency culture
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By Terhi Kinnunen
HELSINKI | Fri Sep 6, 2013 3:09am EDT
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland is pushing to ensure that complacency does not threaten its nuclear safety record as it builds new reactors despite the Fukushima disaster, which has made some other European states think twice about atomic energy.
The head of Finland's nuclear safety body, Petteri Tiippana, said cultural as well as technical lessons had to be learnt from the crisis in Japan, the worst in a quarter of a century.
"It was said in a report in Japan that the underlying causes of the accident had to do with the Japanese culture: how they work, what is their relationship with safety and the mindset in general for nuclear safety," Tiippana told Reuters.
Finland was also not safe from cultivating a false sense of security because its four nuclear reactors have operated safely and reliably so far, said Tiippana, director general of the radiation and nuclear safety authority STUK.
"We would be very narrow-minded if we just focused on external threats," he said in the interview conducted on Thursday. "National traditions, cultures can have significant impact on how people feel about safety."
Tiippana did not say which report in Japan he was referring to. However, Japan's nuclear regulator has said that raising the country's safety culture to international standards would "take a long time" following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which destroyed the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant, leaking radiation into the sea and air.
Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said on Thursday that Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the stricken plant's operator, was still putting out questionable data on the radiation leaks.
Tiippana said Finland had to avoid anything "like the mindset in Japan that accidents do not happen; a severe accident is impossible and one does not have to get prepared for that".
Many countries have reviewed their stance on nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident, the worst since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster when a Soviet plant exploded in Ukraine. In Europe, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium have opted to shift away from nuclear to increase their reliance on renewable energy.
A RATIONAL AND PRAGMATIC CULTURE
Finnish leaders have said their country would stay its nuclear course in pursuit of cheaper and emission free electricity, citing the country's rational and pragmatic culture.
Tiippana said his agency had launched a study of cultural attitudes towards safety, aiming to identify ways of improving security beyond technical preparedness. "We have our own benefits and shortcomings coming from cultural traditions. We have to study what those might be," he said.
This research will be carried out with the University of Jyvaskyla in central Finland, which will interview people working in safety-related organizations. "One of the interesting conclusions would be to see if internationally-agreed definitions of safety culture and safety culture attributes fit well with the Finnish culture," Tiippana said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is also planning a workshop on global safety culture and the influence of national cultures on it.
The Fennovoima project in Pyhajoki, northern Finland, was the first new reactor site to be announced after Fukushima. But critics of Finland's nuclear ambitions note that some projects have not gone smoothly. Construction of Olkiluoto 3, Finland's fifth reactor which Areva and Siemens are building for utility Teollisuuden Voima, has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.
Tiippana said he had to walk a fine line of reassuring Finns without lulling them into a false sense of security. "It is a little bit of a dilemma, to communicate to people that the plants are safe, but still they have to be prepared for accidents," he said.
(editing by David Stamp)