
Geoffrey Sea
The coffin lid on USEC's Un-American Centrifuge project near Piketon, Ohio, has more nails driven into it than a reshingled roof in Rainstorm Alley. The proverbial last nail might have been the Department of Energy denial of a loan guarantee in 2009, or the multiple test-centrifuge crash of June 11, or the second denial of a loan guarantee in the fall of 2011, or the refusal of Congress to grant USEC a bailout in the omnibus appropriations bill for 2012.
But USEC, dead dinosaur of the uranium enrichment industry, is still thrashing its tail. Its agents, recipients of large USEC campaign contributions who occupy seats in Congress, have introduced new legislation to dump federal cash toward their corporate sponsor. Bills in the House of Representatives are scheduled for mark-up on Jan. 18.
“This thing has got more than nine lives, and none of them are worth living,” said Henry Sokolski to the New York Times, about USEC's proposal. “It will not do to whine about Solyndra and wink at this." Sokolski directs the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which along with the National Taxpayers Union and Southern Ohio Neighbors Group has led opposition to any federal bailout for the alleged uranium enrichment company.
A more apt analogy than Sokolski's cat with nine lives would be to the ghoulish "Freddy Krueger refusing to stay dead," in the words of one Ohio politician who prefers to remain anonymous on this subject. Or a vampire nightly returning from the grave. It sucks the blood from the half-living economy of southern Ohio, it can't bear sunlight, and holding a mirror up to it yields no reflection, because it lurks in the shadow-world of top-secret nuclear stuff.
On Dec. 16, as Congress scrambled to cobble together its smorgasbord 2012 spending deal, you will recall that funds for USEC's phantom non-performing project turned up missing from the legislative language (See part 6 in this continuing series). Nobody claimed to know exactly what had happened, and finger-pointing started immediately. The Piketon district's congresswoman, Jean Antediluvian Schmidt, blamed the White House; the White House blamed Congress; the Senate blamed the House; and not a living soul on Capitol Hill blamed the party actually responsible for the orgy of unaccountability, which is USEC, the company doing its best to go bankrupt, with the U.S. Treasury along for the ride.
USEC's Uncivics Lesson
What did happen in the back-room dealings of the omnibus process is now more or less clear and it makes for a good lesson in the uncivics of American government. For full understanding, turn the clock back to October, when the Department of Energy (DOE) informed USEC for a second time that it couldn't qualify for a federal loan guarantee under program regulations anytime in the foreseeable future.
That had a number of immediate consequences for USEC, including that USEC would not be receiving $50 million in Phase 2 investment from Toshiba and Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), overdue for payment but contingent on USEC's receipt of a conditional commitment on a loan guarantee from DOE. Nor would USEC be getting the $75 million payment of Phase 3, also due but contingent on the closing on a $2 billion loan. That's $125 million in total, which USEC had been counting on to pay its lavish living expenses, while the company made arrangements to either secure the larger haul of $2 billion, or skip town and live on the lamb. Remember the figure, it's a clue to the caper now unfolding in Congress.
USEC had been exerting tremendous pressure on DOE and the White House to make a conditional commitment, even without a near-term prospect of meeting DOE's conditions for closing on a loan, just so that USEC could get its hands on at least $50 million of immediate cash from its so-called investors. In Michael Millikan circles that would be called a scam—asking the federal government to provide a meaningless piece of paper for purposes of extracting "investment" funds from third parties under false pretenses.
At this point in the story, I will disclose that I informed DOE during these shenanigans that I believed USEC was engaging DOE in a scheme to defraud investors by asking for a "conditional commitment" unsupported by the facts of USEC's application. I then did receive a phone call from an agent in DOE's Office of Inspector General (IG), asking me the rather odd question of what information I thought DOE was obligated to disclose to Toshiba and B&W. The question was odd because I am not an attorney, nor do I have access to the proprietary information in DOE's files. I interpret that odd question from the IG's office, which was nearly the entire content of the conversation, to mean that DOE was well aware of what USEC was trying to pull off, but DOE wanted to know how much I knew.
So in October, USEC learned that it would be going without the $50 million to $125 million, which the company had acknowledged it needed to make payroll and pay bills, a need dated to the original financing "deadline" of June 30. And USEC has some staggering bills. The Paducah, Kentucky, gaseous diffusion plant—federally owned but operated by USEC—has the largest "single-meter" electricity usage on planet earth. (The coal-fired TVA plants that power Paducah are major contributors to global warming and acid rain, and Paducah is also the largest single-site emitter of ozone-depleting freon gas.)
The Paducah situation is rather dire, because the plant has less than six months left on its clock; if USEC is going to commit to new power contracts and keep Paducah running, it must act with haste. WARN notices of potential plant closure were sent to Paducah employees as a Christmas bonus on Dec. 22. If you suspect that the impending Paducah closure might be behind the congressional funny-business, what with Kentucky's Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky's Hal Rogers as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, you'd have the beginnings of a G.U.T. or Grand Unified Theory, to borrow a term from particle physics. The pressure to float USEC some large amount of Treasury funds is intense, no matter how gutless the politicians or gut-wrenching the corruption.
DOE's big mistake in October, repeating the same mistake it's made in the past, was to give USEC advance notice of the decision, rather than simply make a public announcement. That allowed USEC to get a jump with the media, framing the closed-door discussions with DOE however the company wanted, which it did in a news release on Oct. 21. That news release made DOE's denial of a loan guarantee sound like an approval, with the added step of an "RD&D" program (Research, Development & Demonstration) framed as a measure for certain commercialization, rather than as a final long-delayed test to see if the technology bears potential for future development or not. Every indication is that DOE intends the latter, not the former. USEC had failed to meet numerous deadlines for demonstration of its centrifuge technology, going back to 2005.
USEC also announced a "cost-sharing" agreement with DOE for the new program, as if it were a done deal, not contingent upon congressional appropriation, suggesting that DOE already had the funds and the authority to initiate the program. Moreover, the first stage of the program, as announced by USEC, would involve an 80-20 split of $150 million, with the larger piece paid for by DOE. In subsequent statements from USEC and its agents, including Ohio and Kentucky politicians, it was made plain that the first stage of federal funding was expected and indeed needed as an immediate payment from "existing funds," in order to avoid layoffs in Ohio and at Oak Ridge, Tennessee—layoffs that, in fact, began in early December.
Now let's do some math. Eighty percent of $150 million is $120 million, very close to the amount that USEC had been expecting and needing—but would not be receiving because of the denial of a loan guarantee—from the Phase 2 and 3 investments of Toshiba and B&W. In other words, USEC is saying that since DOE stiffed the company for a fraudulent conditional commitment that USEC needed to collect on contractual payments, DOE somehow owes USEC an equivalent amount of money, required to keep USEC from defaulting on lease commitments at two sites that are owned by DOE.
I suggest that the phony numbers of the proposed "cost-sharing agreement" have nothing to do with actual planning for a thought-out national program of technology development. Centrifuge technology is already outmoded for commercial uranium enrichment, and DOE's sponsored reviews of USEC's technology indicate that it has no commercial potential whatsoever.
Rather, I think that the budget for the "RD&D" program was back-calculated from the urgent cash requirements of USEC Inc., and I think the secretive DOE-USEC negotiations ended with a very stinky trade-off of $120 million in near-term federal funds for $125 million in lost private investment, with the idea of covering all asses, and elephants. The jerry-rigged "RD&D" program serves a national need only from the perspective of avoiding the embarrassment of shutting down facilities on federal land in Ohio and Kentucky precipitously at the start of a presidential election year. Neither the empty-shell facility in Ohio nor the decrepit plant in Kentucky serves any legitimate national purpose, at least none that has been spoken about in public.
If I'm wrong, let DOE produce its paperwork detailing the planning and cost calculations for a centrifuge RD&D program, and let's check the dates, rationale, and authorship of the proposals.
CASH NOW!
DOE did buckle to USEC's October surprise of a cost-sharing arrangement that DOE would mostly pay for. But it didn't completely buckle. Inquiries to DOE in October as to the source of the alleged "existing funds" drew responses that there indeed were no "existing funds"—Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman had been speaking out of their USEC. Secretary of Energy Chu sent letters to Congress asking for a 2012 appropriation of $150 million, but Chu left it entirely ambiguous as to whether that would be for the second part of the program (with the first $150 million paid immediately from "existing funds") or for the first part of the program, with an additional appropriation requested later.
Chu's intentional ambiguity actually represented an on-going dispute between DOE and USEC. DOE, already caught in multiple scandals involving unaccountable funding, wanted to initiate a program that was legally legit, involving the gradual and controlled disbursement of funds appropriated by Congress. But such a program could not keep USEC out of bankruptcy or the centrifuge project from immediate and permanent termination. USEC needs CASH NOW, as they say on TV, and its conceptualization of a bailout was a $100 million plus dump of uranium from government stockpiles, as had been done before (see part 2 of this series), with no reporting requirement for how the proceeds of sale are spent.
The ambiguity allowed USEC to sell different versions of the bailout to Congress through its lobbyists during the omnibus back-room deliberations, confusing reporters who could not discern whose descriptions of the proposed bailout were accurate. Chu was prevailed upon by the Senate side to clarify, which he did only as the omnibus bill was in final drafting. Chu relayed to Senators that, contrary to USEC lobbyist demands, the DOE request of Congress involved two sequential appropriations of $150 million each, one for 2012 and one for 2013. That became the final Senate proposal, which by all reports elicited no response from the House negotiators.
Boehner explained his non-response as due to House objections that the bailout would violate an Appropriations Committee rule against earmarks. That was a lot of hullabaloo as a rationale for House behavior. If it were accurate, then the rule should have been enforced from the start of negotiations, and no USEC bailout language would have been pursued or expected as part of the omnibus bill.
The real reason that Boehner nixed the home-field bailout was that the clarified language of the Senate proposal would not have met USEC's immediate cash requirements. The company would still have gone bankrupt, before any DOE-supervised RD&D program had gotten off the ground. (And that might suit DOE just fine. USEC has been such a total non-performer, DOE might be pleased to find another contractor to perform the non-commercial work it wants at Oak Ridge R&D facilities.) In other words, it was USEC that killed the proposed centrifuge development program—not the White House, Congress, or DOE.
By the end of the day on Friday, Dec. 16, while the completed omnibus bill was being voted on in the Senate, Boehner was already telling reporters that he would support legislation to provide USEC the bailout funding, done "the right way" through committees, rather than as an omnibus rider. But what Boehner failed to clarify for the media was that his "right way" funding would be for something completely different from what DOE had proposed—not a technology development program to meet national requirements under the accountable supervision of DOE, but some form of material or cash disbursement to USEC Inc., which the company could use to pay its proprietary bills.
And unlike other industry bailouts, the federal government could acquire no control or equity stake in the company as security or recompense, because that would violate the USEC Privatization Act, the gargantuan mistake that Congress has yet to acknowledge, much less rectify.
By Christmas, the evil elves of the Ohio congressional delegation had already rushed to introduce legislation in answer to the company's wish list for Santa, probably drafted by USEC's own lawyers. Jean Recrudescence Schmidt, says she has already introduced a bill which, according to her would give DOE the "authority to assess the viability of technologies associated with the American Centrifuge Plant." But DOE already has that authority and has performed two very detailed assessments, concluding that the technology is NOT commercially viable. By other reports, the Schmidt bill would simply hand over $300 million in cash or material to USEC.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senators from Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman, spoke with one voice less than 24 hours after the mysterious disappearance of the USEC bailout from the omnibus bill. Together they are introducing legislation that would rectify the delayed-payments problem by "reprogramming $106 million of existing DOE funds" while transferring uranium tails worth $44 million to USEC under the discredited barter arrangement. The total of $150 million in federal assets would again be given to USEC to meet its immediate needs, in the lifestyle to which it has become accustomed.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a January 18 mark-up on the various USEC proposals, including a last-ditch effort by Kentucky legislators to prolong the life of the Paducah plant by instructing DOE to "re-enrich" depleted uranium tails at Paducah, a proposition that would surely lose money for the government under existing market conditions, all to keep one of the world's worst contributors to global warming, acid rain, and ozone depletion belching its gasses for a few more years. (Where are the environmental groups calling for Paducah's rapid closure?)
The USEC bailout proposal, as it stands, is full of contradictions. For example, the uranium tails that Ohio legislators want to use to pay the USEC payroll in Ohio are actually the same tails that Kentucky legislators want to use to keep Paducah in operation. The tail is clearly wagging the dog here, but it can't wag more than one dog at a time. Flooding the uranium market with new USEC bailout material also acts to depress world prices from already low post-Fukushima levels. That has feedback effects, which further erode USEC's profitability. Such problems were the reason that the Privatization Act aimed to remove politicians from the business in the first place.
Whether the combined strength of the Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee delegations can push through this corporate welfare monstrosity remains to be seen. The anti-earmark principles of the House freshman class will be sorely tested, and there will be opposition from the other side of the aisle. Consider this blithering assault on USEC by Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee during the Solyndra hearings:
Ultimately, I must say that Markey gets it wrong. It appears to him in Washington, DC, as if the forces for USEC are pushing nuclear power against competing renewable energy. But USEC in no way represents the nuclear industry; not a penny put toward "the American Centrifuge Plant" will help generate any wattage from nuclear fuel on a commercial basis, and the leadership of the nuclear industry knows this. The point is that USEC's centrifuge technology is NOT commercially viable, and can't be made so. The taxpayer funds dumped toward USEC have nothing to do with energy policy; it is pure wastage, and it wouldn't matter if USEC called itself a solar company, a lollipop company, or anything else. The USEC bailout is a form of pure corruption. It must be exposed and combated as such.
As for the Obama White House, it's clear that it had insight into USEC from the day the President took office. The USEC employees I talk to assume that Obama is stringing the company along, just waiting for the company to go belly-up by its own incompetence clock. More likely, the Administration conceived of the nonsensical "RD&D" program as a way of postponing the company's collapse until after the 2012 election. It was a way to kick the can, just as was done with the Keystone XL Pipeline. But in the USEC case, the can kicked back, and now another $300 million of Treasury funds are at risk of being blown on a company that will only amplify its extortion demands.
In this situation, the Administration does bear an obligation to end the game, tell the truth, and terminate the foolishness. And, oh yeah, there is still the matter of those southern Ohioans left waiting for real development of the Piketon site in a way that brings permanent jobs and revitalization. What about it, Mr. President?
2012 Prophecy
That keeper of Mayan calendar secrets, Karl Rove, has just released "Political Predictions for 2012" in which he forecasts: "Scandals surrounding the now-bankrupt Solyndra, Fannie and Freddie, MF Global and administration insider deals still to emerge will metastasize, demolishing the president's image as a political outsider. By the election, the impression will harden that Mr. Obama is a modern Chicago-style patronage politician, using taxpayer dollars to reward political allies and contributors."
But USEC is the super-scandal still being dug, large and deep enough to swallow all the top brass of both major political parties. Hillary Clinton's husband is the one responsible for the disastrous privatization of USEC, with affirmative votes from congressional leaders of the 1990s, including especially Speaker of the House during privatization Newt Gingrich and Ohio's current governor, John Kasich. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are deep in the USEC hole, as is 2016 White House hopeful Rob Portman, increasingly mentioned as a likely Mitt Romney running mate.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, running for reelection in 2012, recipient of the first "Progressive Hero" award from Progress Ohio, named "Most Valuable Senator of 2011" by the Nation magazine, has, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission, accepted more than $58,000 in corporate PAC contributions connected to USEC ($11,000), USEC partners like Babcock & Wilcox ($7,000), and large nuclear utility USEC customers like Duke Energy ($20,000). Quid pro quo, Brown has repeatedly called on the Department of Energy to forgo required financial and technical reviews, circumvent legal restrictions on the use of federal funds, and pump government money to USEC like a mainline supply of speed. With Portman, Brown is the co-sponsor of the USEC bailout legislation advertised as "bipartisan," when the word barbarous is more apt.
Why smart men like Senator Brown, who went to Yale, advocate the federal bailout of a small-cap company that is obviously failing, for a project already determined to have no commercial viability, is a subject for the new year.
So I'll make a political prediction for 2012 of my own. The USEC Scandal will make Solyndra look like a tempest in Teapot Dome, and the whole lot of politicians tarnished by their association with the most magnificent failure of privatization in U.S. history will have their reputations and aspirations ruined. But hey, it won't be the end of the world.
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Geoffrey Sea is a writer and historian who has studied the uranium enrichment industry for thirty years. In the early 1980s, he served as a consultant to the labor unions at both the Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, plants. He now lives on the southwest fence-line of the Piketon site and is a co-founder of Southern Ohio Neighbors Group.
By Dirk Lorenzen
2021 begins as a year of Mars. Although our red planetary neighbor isn't as prominent as it was last autumn, it is still noticeable with its characteristic reddish color in the evening sky until the end of April. In early March, Mars shines close to the star cluster Pleiades in the constellation Taurus.
A Landing Like a James Bond Movie
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUyOTIwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDU5MDQ2Nn0.aLE-s5r9YhoJs40XbavhUwUXdY97iykXqo0OO0S5eso/img.jpg?width=980" id="19fa1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c758d3cd0d3e11fbd5290bb95da86396" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="700" data-height="394" />NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (shown in artist's illustration) is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to Mars. Ingenuity, a technology experiment, will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet. Perseverance will arrive at Mars' Jezero Crater with Ingenuity attached to its belly. NASA
<p>The highlight of this year's Mars exploration is the landing of the NASA rover "Perseverance" on February 18. Once the spacecraft enters the atmosphere it will be slowed down by friction. The heat shield will surpass 1,000 degrees Celsius. Later, parachutes will deploy to slow it down even more. Roughly two kilometers above the planet's surface, a sky crane comes into play. Four thrusters keep the crane properly oriented.</p><p><span></span>The rover is connected to the crane by nylon tethers. Upon approach of Mars' surface, the sky crane will lower Perseverance down about 7 meters. Once the rover has touched down, the tethers are cut and the sky crane flies off to land somewhere else on the surface.</p><p>Entry, descent and landing takes just seven minutes – the so-called seven minutes of terror. The flight team can't interact with the spacecraft on Mars. Experts have to sit and watch what's happening more than 200 million kilometers away. Radio signals from the spacecraft need about 11 minutes to travel in one direction. When the control center in Pasadena, California receives the message that entry has begun, Perseverance will already be on the ground. There is only one chance for a smooth landing. Any error could mean the mission is lost. The audacious sky crane maneuver would be a great feat in any action movie. But NASA knows how to do it – the Curiosity rover landed with a sky crane in 2012.</p>Life on Mars?
<p>Scientists want to use Perseverance to explore whether there is or ever has been life on Mars. Today the planet is a hostile environment – dry and cold with no magnetic field shielding the harsh radiation from space. Life as we know it can't survive on the Martian surface right now. But billions of years ago, Mars was hotter and wetter and had a shield against radiation. So it is at least plausible that simple microbes developed there. Maybe they live in the soil now, one or two meters below the surface. Perseverance will collect samples to find out. A future mission by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will pick up the samples and return them to Earth. But this won't happen before 2030.</p>The Long Wait for James Webb
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUyOTIxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2OTM1MDUzNX0.0Jmw-vIz6zuOa7eNsVX2oVzc0L6AFp05cAs4QbzdK6c/img.jpg?width=980" id="9cf3e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d46a2f73a4a2e32a9775087750c92431" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="700" data-height="394" />The Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting the Earth for more than 30 years. NASA
<p>The Hubble Space Telescope's images of planets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies are legendary. The cosmic eye, launched in 1990, is likely to fail towards the end of this decade. The James Webb Space Telescope will be its successor. It is scheduled to launch on October 31 with a European Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.</p><p><span></span>The launch date is about 14 years later than planned when the project began in 1997. At almost $10 billion (€8.2 billion), the telescope is more than ten times as expensive as originally conceived. Its namesake James Webb was the NASA administrator during the height of the Apollo project in the 1960s.</p><p>Astronomers expect completely new insights from James Webb Telescope images, such as how the universe came into being, how it developed and how galaxies, stars and planets are formed. The instrument will observe the earliest childhood of the cosmos and photograph objects that already existed in the universe 200 to 300 million years after the Big Bang. James Webb, as the experts call the telescope for short, may even provide information about possibly inhabited exoplanets – planets like ours orbiting stars other than the Sun. </p>A Sensitive German Camera
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUyOTIxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTE0MzY3Mn0.o3aPaW5t0MFkEgeJl0HQ1V9lz6WDxKVGXyYWvpfoYyk/img.jpg?width=980" id="6ff49" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="187458ae2291c2aeb3bd36bc1ed777e0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="985" data-height="657" />The fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope with its sunshield and unitized pallet structures that will fold up around the telescope for launch. NASA
<p>The mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope is 6.5 meters in diameter and consists of 18 hexagonal segments. The entire instrument unfolds in 178 steps over a period of several months. Only then – probably in the spring of 2022 – will we see its first images.</p><p>Many communication or reconnaissance satellites only unfold in space. However, not every micrometer is as important as with this telescope. </p><p>NIRSpec, one of the four cameras on board, was built at Airbus in Ottobrunn near Munich. It is made of an unusual material: ceramic. Both the basic structure and the mirrors are made of this very light, hard and extremely temperature-insensitive material. With good reason – the large camera has to withstand a lot in space. It is cooled to around -250 degrees Celsius in order to register the weak infrared or thermal radiation from the depths of space. Plastic or metal bend and lead to blurred images. Ceramic, on the other hand, remains in perfect shape.</p><p>The NIRSpec instrument will examine, among other things, emerging stars and distant galaxies. The ceramic camera is incredibly sensitive – it could register the heat radiation from a burning cigarette on the Moon. Thanks to this precision, astronomers will get completely new insights into the cosmos with the James Webb Telescope and NIRSpec.</p>No Flight to the Moon but to the ISS
<p>It's not very likely that the Orion spacecraft from NASA and ESA will start its maiden voyage to the Moon before the end of 2021. As part of the Artemis-1 mission, it will remain in space for four weeks and will orbit the Moon for a few days. There will be no crew on board for the first flight, but two dummies from the German Aerospace Center, which use thousands of sensors to measure the conditions that human beings would be exposed to. The Orion capsule comes from NASA, while the ESA supplies the service module. The service module, which is being built by Airbus in Bremen, provides propulsion, navigation, altitude control and the supply of air, water and fuel. After problems with an engine test in mid-January, the new NASA large rocket Space Launch System (SLS), with which Orion is supposed to be launched, is unlikely to be operational until early 2022.</p><p><span></span>Matthias Maurer from Saarland is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in October. The flight will be in a Crew Dragon capsule from Cape Canaveral. Maurer will live and work in the orbital outpost for six months. He is currently training to work on numerous scientific experiments. Maurer will be the twelfth German in space.</p><p>So far, Germany has only sent men into space. In mid-March, ESA will start the next application process for astronauts. A few years ago, the private initiative Die Astronautin ("She is an astronaut") showed that there are numerous excellent female applicants.</p>Two Lunar Eclipses
<p>Even if there is no flight to the Moon, sky fans are looking forward to two eclipses this year. On May 26, there will be a lunar eclipse between 9:45 and 12:53 UTC. From 11:10 to 11:28 UTC, the Moon will be completely in the Earth's shadow. It can then only be seen in a copper-red light. This is sunlight that is directed into the Earth's shadow by the Earth's atmosphere – reddish, like the sky at sunset. This eclipse can be observed throughout the Pacific, and will be best viewed in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Antarctica. In Europe, the Moon will be below the horizon and therefore the eclipse will not be visible.</p><p>This also the case for the partial lunar eclipse on November 19. From 07:18 to 10:47 UTC, the Moon will be partly in the shadow of the Earth. In the middle of the eclipse (around 9:03 UTC) 98% of the Moon will be eclipsed. The spectacle will be best seen in North America, Greenland, East Asia and much of the Pacific, such as Hawaii and New Zealand.</p>Two Solar Eclipses: One Annular, One Total
<p><span>In 2021, the Moon will pass right in front of the sun, twice. On June 10, the moon will be nearly in the furthest point of its elliptical orbit around Earth. So it will be too small to cover the sun completely. In the middle of this eclipse, an annulus of the sun will remain visible. The sun's ring of fire appears between 9:55 and 11:28 UTC for a maximum of four minutes – but it will only be visible in the very sparsely populated areas of northeast Canada, northwestern Greenland, the North Pole and the far east of Siberia.</span></p><p>In the North Atlantic, Europe and large parts of Russia, an eclipse will be seen at least partially. Between 8:12 and 13:11 UTC, the Sun will appear like a cookie that has been bitten into as the Moon covers parts of the bright disk. In some places, the eclipse will last about two hours. In Central Europe, a maximum of one-fifth of the sun will be covered.</p>Dark Sun Over Antarctica
<p>The celestial event of the year will be a total solar eclipse on December 4. In a 400-kilometer-wide strip, the New Moon will cover the sun completely. For a maximum of one minute and 54 seconds, day will turn to night. For that short time, the brightest stars can be seen in the sky and the flaming solar corona can be seen around the dark disc of the Moon.</p><p><span></span>Unfortunately, hardly anyone will get to see this cosmic spectacle because the strip of totality only runs through the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic. From 7:03 to 8:04 UTC the umbra of the Moon moves across the Earth's surface – and perhaps some ships' crews will enjoy the solar corona.</p><p>Only during the few minutes of totality is it possible to look safely at the Sun with the naked eye. During the partial phase or in the case of an annular eclipse, suitable protective goggles are necessary to watch the spectacle. Normal sunglasses are not safe. Looking unprotected into the sun can lead to severe eye damage or even blindness.</p>Two Giant Planets in Northern Summer and Southern Winter
<p>Venus, our other neighboring planet, will be behind the sun on March 26. It is not visible for the first few months of the year. From the end of April through Christmas, it will be visible as an evening star in the sky after sunset. The planet, shrouded in dense clouds, is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. The best visibility will be from September to December.</p><p>The giant planet Jupiter is in its best position of the year on August 20. It then shines in the constellation Capricorn, only disappearing from the evening sky at the beginning of next year. The ringed planet Saturn is also in the constellation Capricorn and can be observed particularly well on August 2. </p><p>Jupiter and Saturn are the stars of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and those of the long winter nights in the Southern Hemisphere. They are in the same area of the sky, almost forming a double star with Jupiter being the brighter of the two.</p>Shooting Stars in August and December
<p>There are certain periods when the Earth crosses the orbital path of a comet and shooting stars are much more likely than on other nights. Many small stones and dust particles are scattered on comet orbits, which light up the Earth's atmosphere for a moment when they enter.</p><p>The Perseids are particularly promising: August 9-13, a few dozen meteors (the technical term for shooting stars) will scurry across the sky per hour. The traces of light will seem to come from the constellation Perseus, near the striking celestial W of Cassiopeia. The Geminids – meteors coming from the constellation Gemini – will be similarly exciting with up to 100 shooting stars per hour, December 10-15.</p>- What 21 Stars Reveal About the Universe - EcoWatch ›
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Michael Svoboda, Ph.D.
Despite a journey to this moment even more treacherous than expected, Americans now have a fresh opportunity to act, decisively, on climate change.
The authors of the many new books released in just the past few months (or scheduled to be published soon) seem to have anticipated this pivotal moment.
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By Katy Neusteter
The Biden-Harris transition team identified COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change as its top priorities. Rivers are the through-line linking all of them. The fact is, healthy rivers can no longer be separated into the "nice-to-have" column of environmental progress. Rivers and streams provide more than 60 percent of our drinking water — and a clear path toward public health, a strong economy, a more just society and greater resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis.
Public Health
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUyNDY3MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDkxMTkwNn0.pyP14Bg1WvcUvF_xUGgYVu8PS7Lu49Huzc3PXGvATi4/img.jpg?width=980" id="8e577" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1efb3445f5c445e47d5937a72343c012" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="3000" data-height="2302" />Wild and Scenic Merced River, California. Bob Wick / BLM
<p>Let's begin with COVID-19. More than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?name=styln-coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&impression_id=2f508610-2a87-11eb-8622-4f6c038cbd1d&variant=1_Show" target="_blank">16 million Americans</a> have contracted the coronavirus and, tragically,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?name=styln-coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&impression_id=2f508610-2a87-11eb-8622-4f6c038cbd1d&variant=1_Show" target="_blank"> more than</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?name=styln-coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&impression_id=2f508610-2a87-11eb-8622-4f6c038cbd1d&variant=1_Show" target="_blank">300,000 have died</a> due to the pandemic. While health officials encourage hand-washing to contain the pandemic, at least <a href="https://closethewatergap.org/" target="_blank">2 million Americans</a> are currently living without running water, indoor plumbing or wastewater treatment. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/23/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-water-bills-rise" target="_blank">aging water infrastructure is growing increasingly costly for utilities to maintain</a>. That cost is passed along to consumers. The upshot? <a href="https://research.msu.edu/affordable-water-in-us-reaching-a-crisis/" target="_blank">More than 13 million</a> U.S. households regularly face unaffordable water bills — and, thus, the threat of water shutoffs. Without basic access to clean water, families and entire communities are at a higher risk of <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2020/08/05/488705/bridging-water-access-gap-covid-19-relief/" target="_blank">contracting</a> and spreading COVID-19.</p><p>We have a moral duty to ensure that everyone has access to clean water to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Last spring, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-explained-bailouts-unemployment-benefits.html" target="_blank">Congress appropriated more than $4 trillion</a> to jumpstart the economy and bring millions of unemployed Americans back to work. Additional federal assistance — desperately needed — will present a historic opportunity to improve our crumbling infrastructure, which has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/23/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-water-bills-rise" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grossly underfunded for decades</a>.</p><p>A report by my organization, American Rivers, suggests that <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-rivers-website/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/09223525/ECONOMIC-ENGINES-Report-2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Congress must invest at least $50 billion</a> "to address the urgent water infrastructure needs associated with COVID-19," including the rising cost of water. This initial boost would allow for the replacement and maintenance of sewers, stormwater infrastructure and water supply facilities.</p>Economic Recovery
<p>Investing in water infrastructure and healthy rivers also creates jobs. Consider, for example, that <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y9p6sgnk" target="_blank">every $1 million spent on water infrastructure in the United States generates more than 15 jobs</a> throughout the economy, according to a report by the Value of Water Campaign. Similarly, <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yyvd2ksp" target="_blank">every "$1 million invested in forest and watershed restoration contracting will generate between 15.7 and 23.8 jobs,</a> depending on the work type," states a working paper released by the Ecosystem Workforce Program, University of Oregon. Healthy rivers also spur tourism and recreation, which many communities rely on for their livelihoods. According to the findings by the Outdoor Industry Association, which have been shared in our report, "Americans participating in watersports and fishing spend over <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-rivers-website/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/30222425/Exec-summary-ECONOMIC-ENGINES-Report-June-30-2020.pdf" target="_blank">$174 billion</a> on gear and trip related expenses. And, the outdoor watersports and fishing economy supports over <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-rivers-website/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/30222425/Exec-summary-ECONOMIC-ENGINES-Report-June-30-2020.pdf" target="_blank">1.5 million jobs nationwide</a>."</p><p>After the 2008 financial crisis, Congress invested in infrastructure to put Americans back to work. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/25941-clean-water-green-infrastructure-get-major-boost" target="_blank">of 2009 (ARRA) allocated $6 billion</a> for clean water and drinking water infrastructure to decrease unemployment and boost the economy. More specifically, <a href="https://www.conservationnw.org/news-updates/us-reps-push-for-millions-of-restoration-and-resilience-jobs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an analysis of ARRA</a> "showed conservation investments generated 15 to 33 jobs per million dollars," and more than doubled the rate of return, according to a letter written in May 2020 by 79 members of Congress, seeking greater funding for restoration and resilience jobs.</p><p>Today, when considering how to create work for the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10.7 million</a> people who are currently unemployed, Congress should review previous stimulus investments and build on their successes by embracing major investments in water infrastructure and watershed restoration.</p>Racial Justice
<p>American Rivers also recommends that Congress dedicate <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-rivers-website/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/09223525/ECONOMIC-ENGINES-Report-2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$500 billion for rivers and clean water over the next 10 years</a> — not just for the benefit of our environment and economy, but also to begin to address the United States' history of deeply entrenched racial injustice.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/npdes/sanitary-sewer-overflows-ssos" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">23,000-75,000 sewer overflows</a> that occur each year release up to <a href="https://www.americanrivers.org/2020/05/fighting-for-rivers-means-fighting-for-justice/#:~:text=There%20are%20also%2023%2C000%20to%2075%2C000%20sanitary%20sewer,to%20do%20with%20the%20mission%20of%20American%20Rivers." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10 billion gallons of toxic sewage</a> <em>every day</em> into rivers and streams. This disproportionately impacts communities of color, because, for generations, Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other people of color have been <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flooding-disproportionately-harms-black-neighborhoods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">relegated</a> to live in flood-prone areas and in neighborhoods that have been intentionally burdened with a lack of development that degrades people's health and quality of life. In some communities of color, incessant flooding due to stormwater surges or <a href="https://www.ajc.com/opinion/opinion-partnering-to-better-manage-our-water/7WQ6SEAQP5E4LGQCEYY5DO334Y/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">combined sewer overflows</a> has gone unmitigated for decades.</p><p>We have historically treated people as separate from rivers and water. We can't do that anymore. Every voice — particularly those of people most directly impacted — must have a loudspeaker and be included in decision-making at the highest levels.</p><p>Accordingly, the new administration must diligently invest in projects at the community level that will improve lives in our country's most marginalized communities. We also must go further to ensure that local leaders have a seat at the decision-making table. To this end, the Biden-Harris administration should restore <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cwa-401#:~:text=Section%20401%20Certification%20The%20Clean%20Water%20Act%20%28CWA%29,the%20United%20States.%20Learn%20more%20about%20401%20certification." target="_blank">Section 401 of the Clean Water Act</a>, which was undermined by the <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/tribes-and-environmental-groups-sue-trump-administration-to-preserve-clean-water-protections#:~:text=Under%20Section%20401%20of%20the%20Clean%20Water%20Act%2C,seeks%20to%20undermine%20that%20authority%20in%20several%20ways%3A" target="_blank">Trump administration's 2020 regulatory changes</a>. This provision gives states and tribes the authority to decide whether major development projects, such as hydropower and oil and gas projects, move forward.</p>Climate Resilience
<p>Of course, the menacing shadow looming over it all? Climate change. <a href="https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IFRC_wdr2020/IFRC_WDR_ExecutiveSummary_EN_Web.pdf" target="_blank">More than 100 climate-related catastrophes</a> have pummeled the Earth since the pandemic was declared last spring, including the blitzkrieg of megafires, superstorms and heat waves witnessed during the summer of 2020, directly impacting the lives of more than <a href="https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IFRC_wdr2020/IFRC_WDR_ExecutiveSummary_EN_Web.pdf" target="_blank">50 million people globally</a>.</p><p>Water and climate scientist Brad Udall often says, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQhpj5G0dME" target="_blank">Climate change is water change</a>." In other words, the most obvious and dire impacts of climate change are evidenced in profound changes to our rivers and water resources. You've likely seen it where you live: Floods are more damaging and frequent. Droughts are deeper and longer. Uncertainty is destabilizing industry and lives.</p><p>By galvanizing action for healthy rivers and managing our water resources more effectively, we can insure future generations against the consequences of climate change. First, we must safeguard rivers that are still healthy and free-flowing. Second, we must protect land and property against the ravages of flooding. And finally, we must promote policies and practical solutions that take the science of climate disruption into account when planning for increased flooding, water shortage and habitat disruption.</p><p>Imagine all that rivers do for us. Most of our towns and cities have a river running through them or flowing nearby. Rivers provide clean drinking water, irrigate crops that provide our food, power our homes and businesses, provide wildlife habitat, and are the lifeblood of the places where we enjoy and explore nature, and where we play and nourish our spirits. Healthy watersheds help <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059952" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mitigate</a> climate change, absorbing and reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Healthy rivers and floodplains help communities adapt and build resilience in the face of climate change by improving flood protection and providing water supply and quality benefits. Rivers are the cornerstones of healthy, strong communities.</p><p>The more than <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/water/archive/web/html/index-17.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">3 million miles</a> of rivers and streams running across our country are a source of great strength and opportunity. When we invest in healthy rivers and clean water, we can improve our lives. When we invest in rivers, we create jobs and strengthen our economy. When we invest in rivers, we invest in our shared future.</p>Fifteen states are in for an unusually noisy spring.
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