Nuclear, coal and science get boost in Bush budget
The 2009 budget proposed by the White House - which requires congressional approval - includes $25 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Energy Department, up nearly 5 percent from 2008.
The lion's share of the funds - about $9.1 billion - goes to securing U.S. nuclear weapon stockpiles. Funding for energy resource initiatives fell 10 percent to $3.65 billion, while funding for science programs rose 19 percent to $4.7 billion.
The budget requests big funding boosts for research into high energy physics, nuclear physics and basic energy sciences, which saw funding rise 19 percent to $1.57 billion.
A separate low-income energy assistance program overseen by the Health and Human Services Department fell 22 percent to $2 billion.
Nuclear energy initiatives saw increases across the board, and research into clean coal initiatives rose 40 percent to $818 million. Building a long-delayed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would get about $495 million in funds in 2009. The Energy Department plans to submit a license request for Yucca Mountain to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this year.
Capturing carbon emissions from coal plants and socking them away in underground reservoirs was at the top of the department's 2009 priority list. Carbon sequestration research got $400 million in funds, along with $241 million for demonstration projects.
Research initiatives at the DOE's office of energy efficiency and renewable energy saw cuts in research into hydrogen technology and weatherization programs and increases in biomass and biorefineries, with the aim of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with conventional sources by 2012.
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Parisians vote to ban rental e-scooters from French capital by huge margin
PARIS - Parisians have voted to rid the streets of the French capital of rental electric scooters, with an overwhelming 90% of votes cast supporting a ban, official results show.
Paris was a pioneer when it introduced e-scooters, or trottinettes, in 2018 as the city’s authorities sought to promote non-polluting forms of urban transport.
But as the two-wheeled vehicles grew in popularity, especially among young people, so did the number of accidents: in 2022, three people died and 459 were injured in e-scooter accidents in Paris.
In what was billed as a “public consultation” voters were asked: “For or against self-service scooters?”
Twenty-one polling…
