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The Central Arizona Project delivers water from the Colorado River to millions of people in Arizona. Nathan VanderKlippe/Tausi Insider Nothing about Arizona’s Harquahala Valley looks like an oasis. Saguaro cactuses, the icon of the state, dot its scrubby expanses. Great billows of dust follow vehicles that travel its dirt roads. It averages 127 millimetres of rain a year, making it among the driest places in the U.S. But as any water executive can tell you, it’s what lies below the Harquahala desert that counts: an aquifer big enough to keep every faucet and factory running in Phoenix for more than six years. It’s one of the reasons the Canadian companies that have invested in Arizona water see potential profit in a drought that has grown so severe that the state may soon see its allocation of Colorado River water reduced by a quarter, and potentially even more. Edmonton-headquartered EPCOR is the largest private water utility in the state. Liberty Utilities, which is owned by Oakv...

Delegates walk past a giant Jenga-style tower at the COP15 United Nations conference on biodiversity in Montreal, on Dec. 8. Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press A reporting system for business risks tied to land and water degradation, biodiversity loss and efforts to reverse them should start gaining traction globally in 2024 and achieve wide adoption relatively quickly, the co-chair of the task force developing it says. David Craig, co-chair of the new Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), said the urgency of protecting the world’s natural assets puts pressure on businesses to act to avoid financial and legal trouble. Companies face a host of risks as the natural systems degrade – shoreline loss, floods, deforestation, wildfires – all of which affect assets and markets. The TNFD aims to have its framework ready by next September, giving companies a new set of tools to assess and disclose their impact on nature and the risks they face in dealing with physical and pol...

The Treasury Department said Friday it is imposing sanctions on a broad array of people and companies around the world for corruption and human rights abuses – from illegal fishing operations in Chinese waters to kickbacks in Guatemala – in recognition of International Anti-Corruption Day. Those sanctioned include the 15-member Russian elections commission, which oversaw a sham referendum in Russia-occupied Ukraine in September, a group of companies and people linked to illegal fishing operations and human rights abuses in Chinese waters and a church founder in the Philippines charged with sex trafficking. Other people and firms from Iran, the Western Balkans, Liberia and El Salvador were also among those identified by the U.S. federal government for financial penalties and blocks on property located or managed in the U.S. The wide-sweeping sanctions announcement comes on the day that the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and aligns with...

Emergency crews work to clean up a spill from the Keystone pipeline, in Washington County, Kan., on Dec. 9. DRONE BASE/Reuters Cleanup of the biggest U.S. oil spill in nearly a decade will take at least weeks more, local officials in Kansas said on Tuesday, citing a recent meeting with Keystone pipeline owner TC Energy Corp TRP-T. TC closed the pipeline after the spill of roughly 14,000 barrels of crude was discovered on Wednesday in Washington County in Kansas. There is still no official timeline for a restart of the line, which will need approval from regulators. TC and county officials met briefly on Monday. “They told us they expected to be here for several more weeks,” said Randy Hubbard, Washington County’s emergency management co-ordinator. “They didn’t qualify what that is.” TC did not respond to questions, and the company and regulators have not yet identified a cause for the leak. Sabotage has been ruled out, Kansas State Representative Lisa Moser said in a post online Mond...

Delegates walk in front of the Palais des Congres during the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, on Dec. 13. ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images Developing countries have walked out of a global conference on conserving the world’s biodiversity over concerns that talks about how those efforts should be funded are lagging behind those on how much land and water should be set aside. “We feel that negotiations have not been moving at the same pace,” said a delegate from one of the countries that left the COP15 talks in Montreal at about 1 a.m. Wednesday. “We feel that resource mobilization has been left behind.” The delegate, who asked not to be named, said rich countries have been happy to talk about specific targets for conservation. The marquee goal of the conference is a deal on setting aside 30 per cent of the globe’s land and water. But he said those countries have not been so willing to come up with a number on how much they’re willing to pay. “Why are we discussing figures on t...

A satellite, part of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, is shown in a handout. A piece of Canadian satellite radar technology will play a key role in a mission to observe 90 per cent of earth’s water. HO/The Canadian Press A spacecraft aided by Canadian technology has begun its mission to answer one of the most basic but challenging questions in climate science: Where is all the water? The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, or SWOT, was launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base early Friday morning aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. The Earth-orbiting satellite was developed by NASA in partnership with the French space agency, CNES, with additional involvement from Britain and Canada. SWOT’s aim is to measure the surface heights of rivers, lakes and coastal waters with about 90 per cent coverage of the globe and track how they change over time. While the task may sound straightforward, the results promise to unlock a bounty of new information about t...

Photo : New Africa ( Shutterstock ) For the most part, when we tell you about the unexpected household uses for everyday objects, you just use them as they are. Hairspray , vodka , Windex —they’re all multi-use and simple. But then, there’s water. You already use water every day; we don’t need to tell you water is objectively good. Unlike other surprising substances we highlight for their household uses, though, water needs just a little tweaking in order to become something new and useful: You have to boil it. Here’s what you can do around the house with boiled water. https://www.tausiinsider.com/11-surprising-household-uses-for-boiling-water/?feed_id=325936&_unique_id=63fcb4aa22658

Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc. will employ the company’s advanced compressed air energy storage technology in a proposed energy storage project in California. Handout A California community electricity distributor has signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc., a deal worth almost US$1-billion that moves a long-duration energy storage project closer to fruition. Under the agreement, Central Coast Community Energy will contract for 40 per cent of the offtake from Hydrostor’s Willow Rock Energy Storage Center, a proposed development near Rosamond, in Kern County, Calif. The project will employ the company’s advanced compressed air energy storage technology. Willow Rock is one of two planned Hydrostor developments in California. The plants, which can store energy longer than lithium-ion batteries, will allow more renewable energy onto grids by smoothing out the inherent supply variability of wind and solar farms. The company is also developing a project in...

Google had previously kept its data centre water usage secret but it has recently revealed how many billions of litres it uses each year Technology 17 January 2023 By Jeremy Hsu Pipes that carry ...

Women in rural Kwazulu Natal, South Africa use hippo rollers to transport their water home. Handout The organizers: Luke Vorstermans and Linda Ryan The pitch: Creating the Roll a Hippo Foundation The reason: To help people in Africa transport water Luke Vorstermans and his wife Linda Ryan have been to Africa several times and they’ve often seen women carrying large jugs of water on their heads. When he returned home to Gibsons, B.C., from one trip, Mr. Vorstermans saw a handy device on the internet called a “hippo water roller” that made moving water much easier. The roller is essentially a plastic barrel with handles. Once the barrel is filled, it can be easily rolled along almost any surface. “I looked at this and I said, ‘Why are women still carrying water in the old, hard way when this is available?’,’ Mr. Vorstermans recalled. He contacted the manufacturer in South Africa and was told that there had been minimal demand for the roller, which was sideline for the company. Mr. Vor...

Photo : volodimir bazyuk ( Shutterstock ) There are many things that can smell gross in your home, but a stinky sink drain is one of the worst. It lingers at the corner of your consciousness, always there, vaguely bothering you. How did it come to this, and how do you fix it There are a few common ways that your drain may have gotten smelly, but that’s between you and your sink. For now, let’s focus on the ways to fix it. Try hot water first The first thing you want to try is hot water— very hot water. According to Rakeman Plumbing , this could be all it takes to dislodge whatever food, hair, or other gunk is causing the stink. (It’s true that boiling water can actually do wonders for you around the house.) Once you’ve dumped a few quarts down there, give it a few minutes, then follow up with some cold water. Repeat the process two or three times and see if the smell improves. One thing you probably don’t want to do is try a chemical cleaner designed for smelly drains. They conta...

Emergency crews work to clean up a spill from the Keystone pipeline, in Washington County, Kan., on Dec. 9. DRONE BASE/Reuters Cleanup of the biggest U.S. oil spill in nearly a decade will take at least weeks more, local officials in Kansas said on Tuesday, citing a recent meeting with Keystone pipeline owner TC Energy Corp TRP-T. TC closed the pipeline after the spill of roughly 14,000 barrels of crude was discovered on Wednesday in Washington County in Kansas. There is still no official timeline for a restart of the line, which will need approval from regulators. TC and county officials met briefly on Monday. “They told us they expected to be here for several more weeks,” said Randy Hubbard, Washington County’s emergency management co-ordinator. “They didn’t qualify what that is.” TC did not respond to questions, and the company and regulators have not yet identified a cause for the leak. Sabotage has been ruled out, Kansas State Representative Lisa Moser said in a post online Mond...