Political Ecology

“This volume of softwood log exports was down 10.2 percent from the 2008 volume of 776.3 million board feet, while the volume of softwood lumber exports was up 17.5 percent from 293.0 million board feet,” said Debra Warren, an economist with the station.Warren compiled the data from the U.S. International Trade Commission and will publish it later this year, as she does annually, in Production, Prices, Employment, and Trade in Northwest Forest Industries, a bulletin that provides current information on the region’s lumber and plywood production and prices and employment in the forest industries.Other highlights of the 2009 calendar year include:Softwood Logs * Oregon and Washington imported 84.3 million board feet of softwood logs in 2009. * Some 368.4 million board feet (52.8 percent) of the 2009 log exports went to Japan, 247.9 million board feet (35.6 percent) went to South Korea, 2.3 million board feet went to Canada, 70.7 million board feet (10.1 percent) went to China, and 1.4 million board feet went to Taiwan. * Douglas-fir accounted for 64.1 percent of these log exports; western hemlock, 20.8 percent; and other softwoods made up the remaining 15.1 percent. * The total value of log shipments was $429.1 million at the port of exportation, and the average value was $615.42 per thousand board feet. Douglas-fir averaged $667.17 per thousand board feet; hemlock, $573.65; and other softwoods, $453.95. The average value of logs imported during 2009 was $367.53 per thousand board feet.Softwood Lumber * Oregon and Washington imported 1.1 billion board feet of softwood lumber in 2009, mostly from Canada. * Some 111.6 million board feet (32.4 percent) of the 2009 softwood lumber exports went to Japan, 123.9 million board feet (36.0 percent) went to Canada, 29.2 million board feet (8.5 percent) went to the Philippines, 8.8 million board feet (2.6 percent) went to South Korea, 22.2 million board feet (6.4 percent) went to China, 10.5 million board feet (3.1 percent) went to Taiwan, 3.0 million board feet went to Australia, and 4.4 million board feet went to Vietnam. * Douglas-fir accounted for 51.2 percent of these lumber exports; western hemlock, 14.0 percent; and other softwoods made up the remaining 34.8 percent. * The total value of lumber shipments was $223.7 million at the ports of exportation, and the average value was $649.86 per thousand board feet. Douglas-fir averaged $762.11 per thousand board feet; western hemlock, $446.43; and other softwoods, $566.49. The average value of softwood lumber imported during 2009 was $414.49 per thousand board feet.

Log exports down, lumber exports up in Washington and Oregon in 2009

“We estimate there are fifty thousand or more seamounts out there,” says Hall-Spencer, a lecturer at the University of Plymouth in the U.K and a member of the project CenSeam, a census exploring seamounts and the marine life associated with the newly discovered oases beneath the sea. “But less than 0.1 percent of them have been surveyed.”According to Hall-Spencer, the ecological processes driving life on seamounts still are poorly understood. Seamounts are veritable islands creating their own environmental conditions.”Wherever we look at these undersea mountains, our sampling robots and nets bring up creatures we have never seen before. And the taxonomy experts who then examine the creatures in the lab have never seen most of them, either. It can take a year or more to describe a species never seen before, so we have a huge back log of all these organisms that are new to science.”Only problem: even faster than seamounts are being discovered, they are being destroyed, and with them entire ecosystems that we hardly know anything about.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-120308-081109

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) has infected millions of people in Africa, Europe and Asia1, 2 since this alphavirus reemerged from Kenya in 2004. The severity of the disease and the spread of this epidemic virus present a serious public health threat in the absence of vaccines or antiviral therapies. Here, we describe a new vaccine that protects against CHIKV infection of nonhuman primates. We show that selective expression of viral structural proteins gives rise to virus-like particles (VLPs) in vitro that resemble replication-competent alphaviruses. Immunization with these VLPs elicited neutralizing antibodies against envelope proteins from alternative CHIKV strains. Monkeys immunized with VLPs produced high-titer neutralizing antibodies that protected against viremia after high-dose challenge. We transferred these antibodies into immunodeficient mice, where they protected against subsequent lethal CHIKV challenge, indicating a humoral mechanism of protection. Immunization with alphavirus VLP vaccines represents a strategy to contain the spread of CHIKV and related pathogenic viruses in humans.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.2105

The scientists describe a new manufacturing method that solves this problem. It enabled them to apply nano-sized ribbons of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) — each strand about 1/50,000th the width of a human hair — to ribbons of flexible silicone rubber. PZT is one of the most efficient piezoelectric materials developed to date and can convert 80 percent of mechanical energy into electricity. The combination resulted in a super-thin film they call ‘piezo-rubber’ that seems to be an excellent candidate for scavenging energy from body movements.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl903377u

The technology he refers to is called “torrefaction” — heating biomass above 250 degrees Celsius in an oxygen-free environment. “It’s not very different from roasting coffee beans,” said Wright. But while coffee beans are roasted for flavor, biomass could be “torrefied” simply to improve its physical characteristics.Two characteristics that heavily influence the logistics and economics of today’s biomass industry are moisture and density. Most biomass is wet, which complicates long-term storage; and it’s not very dense, which compromises the cost efficiency of mass transportation. Driving out moisture and volatile compounds through this process could address both issues.Torrefied biomass has almost no water and actually becomes water resistant, which could improve storage in humid climates. The torrefied product also breaks down more easily so it’s more uniform after grinding.With research funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of the Biomass Program, INL researchers are now torrefying biomass to further study physical characteristics of the dried product, its production cost and how much energy it could generate.

Roasting biomass may be key process in bioenergy economy