Environmental▼News This implies that antiestrogens could also affect fish in a quite unexpected manner, he suggests. This study is the first step in the right direction, says ecotoxicologist John Sumpter of Brunel University in Uxbridge, U.K. He believes that the recent research emphasis on just estrogenic chemicals has not been justified because other classes of endocrine disrupters, such as antiestrogens, androgens, and antiandrogens, are likely to play
an important role as well. The real issue, however, is not the effects of individual compounds, but how organisms react to mixtures of endocrine disrupters in the environment, he emphasizes. “We have no idea at the moment how to even address this issue,” Sumpter admits, because the interactions between different chemicals, let alone from different classes of endocrine disrupters, are extremely hard to address. He points
out that the latest funding on risk assessment of chemical mixtures in the European Union—the Cluster of Research into Endocrine Disruption in Europe, which has mixtures of endocrine disrupters as one of its major foci—has a total budget of more than ¤20 million (www. credocluster.info). “This issue sweeps across all organisms, both in the environment and up to human health,” Sumpter states. —ANKE SCHAEFER
Cheap solar energy
BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV
says, the dish must be used in conjunction with solar photovoltaic The world’s largest solar dish has the times stronger than noontime (PV) cells. He plans to use the dish potential to generate energy for sunshine. to illuminate 1 m2 of PV cells, about 5 cents (U.S.) per kilowatt To generate solar energy at a which will be actively cooled to hour (kWh), according to David price that “no other solar energy 60 °C. “Under such conditions, the Faiman, director of Ben-Gurion Uni- can come anywhere near,” Faiman cells should have a peak power of versity of the Negev’s National about 100 kW and produce Solar Energy Center in Israel, about 150,000 kWh,” he where the dish has been built. explains. In comparison, solar electricity Faiman’s calculations are generally costs around 30 cents based on using 23% efficient per kWh, according to Solarsolar cells; the economics buzz, Inc., an international would be proportionately betsolar energy research and conter if the 40% efficient solar sulting company. cells, which are expected to be The 400-square-meter (m2) available soon, were used, he dish, which is known as the says. He also notes that the Photon Energy Transformer 60 °C cooling water could be and Astrophysics Laboratory reused for purposes such as (PETAL), can generate approxrefrigeration or water desalinimately 400 kW of thermal enization projects. —KELLYN Israel’s giant solar dish collector could lower costs ergy at intensities up to 10,000 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour. BETTS
Climate change technology reports criticized Two reports quietly released in December by the Bush Administration on how the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) is better coordinating research related to greenhouse gas mitigating technologies across 14 government agencies have drawn criticism from technical experts. The reports shed no light on budgeting priorities, nor do they provide as much detail as their critics deem necessary. The reports, which offer the most detailed information to date on the year-old CCTP, describe 87 activities in 18 far-flung research areas, which include the FreedomCAR program, nuclear power gener-
ation, carbon sequestration, and reduction of sulfur hexafluoride emissions from magnesium production. After the CCTP was introduced in November 2002, critics called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to give the solutions to climate change equal time with the science; the reports address some of those issues. In his State of the Union address in 2003, Bush responded to those critics—and the nation as a wholeby saying, “In this century, the greatest environmental progress will come about not through endless lawsuits or command-andcontrol regulations, but through technology and innovation.” A year
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later, however, critics charge that the long-awaited reports describing the technology that the nation is developing don’t go far enough. DOE needs to do more, complains Sudhir Chella Rajan, a senior scientist with the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sustainable development. “What is frustrating about the CCTP document … is that it looks like a giant publicity brochure with technology profiles but no serious analysis of their potential, costs, integration with existing systems, or aggregate emissions reduction impacts over the medium and long term. In the absence of explicit emissions reduction goals and a timetable to strive for, the sanguine technologi-
