Российская наука и мир (дайджест)

Американская корпорация Chevron и Российская академия наук (РАН) подписали соглашение о научно-техническом сотрудничестве. Компания Chevron работает более чем в 180 странах мира по всем направлениям нефтегазовой отрасли, включая разведку и добычу нефти и газа, их переработку, транспортировку, нефтехимическое производство, сбыт продуктов нефтехимии, а также производство электроэнергии.

MOSCOU, 4 avril - RIA Novosti. L'Académie des sciences de Russie (RAN) et la multinationale Chevron ont signé mardi un accord de coopération scientifique et technique, peut-on lire dans leur communiqué de presse conjoint.
A cette fin, les signataires de l'accord créeront un comité de coordination.
"Nous faisons grand cas du haut niveau professionnel des chercheurs russes et j'espère qu'ensemble nous parviendrons à des résultats sérieux dans les secteurs d'intérêt mutuel. Pour Chevron, il s'agit avant tout de technologies de pointe dans la transformation d'hydrocarbures, ainsi que de nouvelles possibilités dans l'utilisation des énergies nouvelles", a déclaré le directeur exécutif de Chevron, David O'Reilly, cité par le communiqué.
Pour sa part, le vice-président de la RAN, Nikolaï Laverov, a noté que les chercheurs russes trouvaient important de s'appuyer sur l'expérience - unique en son genre - de la compagnie Chevron dans le règlement des grandes questions du secteur énergétique.
"L'expérience de gestion des processus d'innovation et d'organisation de la recherche fondamentale, liée à une utilisation d'ensemble des hydrocarbures suscite notre intérêt particulier", a souligné l'académicien russe.
La RAN et Chevron sont prêts à échanger les informations d'intérêt mutuel, à débattre, dans leurs rencontres, des nouvelles tendances dans la recherche et les innovations technologiques à vocation industrielle, souligne le communiqué de presse.
Chevron est une multinationale énergétique dont le siège se trouve à San-Ramon, en Californie (USA). La compagnie est présente dans plus de 180 pays du monde, dans des secteurs tels que la prospection et la production de pétrole et de gaz, le transport d'hydrocarbures, la production pétrochimique, les ventes de produits pétrochimiques et la production d'électricité.
En Russie, Chevron est le plus gros actionnaire du Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) et étudie activement de nouvelles possibilités dans la prospection géologique, la production et la transformation de pétrole et de gaz.
Parmi les autres axes d'activité de la multinationale en Russie, on trouve la vente de lubrifiants, la coordination d'études de marketing et celle du transport de pétrole et de produits pétroliers, ainsi que la coopération avec des centres de recherche russes dans différents domaines du raffinage et de la pétrochimie.

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Nature.com - London, England, UK / 6 April 2006

Arctic water flow speeding up
Measures of rain, snow and runoff in Siberia show hefty changes

Quirin Schiermeier

В результате исследований, проведенных российскими и американскими учеными, выяснилось, что за последние 60 лет объем стока пресной воды в Северный Ледовитый океан из Лены, одной из крупнейших сибирских рек, увеличился на 10 процентов. Это результат повышения уровня выпадения снега, таяния вечной мерзлоты и климатических изменений. Такие исследования проводились и раньше, но в данном случае ученые полностью отследили гидрологический цикл.

One of Siberia's largest rivers is dumping about 10% more fresh water into the Arctic today than it was some 60 years ago, thanks to the complex effects of increased snowfall, melting permafrost and changing weather.
The result is in line with predictions of how climate change is expected to alter the Arctic water cycle, and is a worrying sign in terms of maintaining important ocean currents. The more fresh water that enters the northern seas, the less dense this water becomes and the less likely it is to sink. This sinking currently helps to drive a powerful Atlantic current that keeps the climate temperate and steady.
Freshening of the Arctic Ocean may already have begun to affect this so-called thermohaline circulation, but oceanographers and climate modellers are still puzzling about the magnitude and likely effects of the changes (see "Climate change: A sea change").
Jessie Cherry of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and her team analysed records of precipitation, snow depth and runoff in the catchment area of the Lena River, an area of more than a million square kilometres east of the Ural mountains in Siberia.
The team, including two Russian scientists, found that the average winter snow depth there has doubled to 44 centimetres from 22 centimetres in 1940. Although summers in the region have become significantly dryer, and also slightly cooler, total runoff from the Lena has increased by around 10%, they reported at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna, Austria, on 5 April.
Other research projects have looked at river runoff before: the annual runoff of the six mightiest rivers draining into the Arctic Ocean, including Russia's Ob, Lena and Yenisey, increased by about 7% between 1936 and 1999. But the study by Cherry and colleagues looks at the full hydrological cycle, in order to unpick exactly how and why the rivers are pouring out more water.
Melting land
An increased snowmelt plays a big role during the spring, but there are other factors too. The atmosphere is getting warmer and moister, says Cherry. And, whereas Siberian summer days are getting cooler, night temperatures have increased, allowing for more permafrost thawing and more water drainage. In the winter, warming has enhanced evaporation, precipitation and runoff.
Permafrost thawing could be the biggest effect in the future, Cherry says. Increased melting of frozen soils has so far only been observed in the southern third of their study area. If it were to spread further north, which could happen as temperatures continue to rise, this would really boost runoff, she says.
Validation
Given the number of factors involved in the water cycle and the difficulty of maintaining devices that collect data, it has proven much harder to quantify changes in water flow than, for example, global temperatures. Cherry's unpublished analysis, which is based on daily observations from seven Russian meteorological stations and 40 stations recording snow depth, is one of few studies that climate researchers can use to validate their models of hydrological changes.
"It is always fairly useful to know what the real world does, and the Arctic freshwater budget is indeed very important," says Michael Vellinga, a climate modeller at the UK Met office in Exeter. "Solid data about one large river system are therefore very welcome; having that kind of information Arctic-wide would be incredibly valuable."

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News24 - South Africa / 03/04/2006

River "50 times overpolluted"

Российские ученые провели исследование проб воды из реки Сунгари (загрязнение реки, которая является крупнейшим притоком Амура, произошло 13 ноября в результате взрыва на химзаводе в китайской провинции Цзилинь). Выяснилось, что содержание некоторых вредных веществ превышает норму в 50 раз.

Moscow - Russian scientists conducting tests in China's Songhua River over the past two months have found 50 times the acceptable concentration of chlorphenols, the waste product of cellulose and paper mills, a Russian regional environmental official said on Monday.
Viktor Bardyuk, head of the environmental protection department of the Natural Resources Ministry of Siberia's Khabarovsk region, told NTV television water samples taken in February and March had also contained high concentrations of heavy metals such as iron, zinc, nickel and mercury, and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are carcinogenic.
Russian scientists have been monitoring the Songhua, which feeds into Siberia's Amur, following a November factory explosion that resulted in benzene and other toxic chemicals being leaked into the river and forced Chinese authorities to cut off drinking water to millions of people. By the time the spill penetrated Russian waters, the concentration of toxins had fallen sharply.
Ecologists warned the pollution would intensify during the spring thaw, but Chinese and Russian officials recently ruled out the possibility of a further round of pollution caused by the melting of river ice, according to Zhou Shengxian, Beijing's top environmental official.
China's State Bureau of Environmental Protection said last week it would spend 10 billion yuan ($1.2bn) cleaning up the heavily polluted Songhua along the Russian border.

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Khaleej Times - Dubai, United Arab Emirates / 5 April 2006

"Almost 70,000 Russian deaths" from Chernobyl disaster

В сентябре 2005 года ООН в лице Международного Агентства по атомной энергии (МАГАТЭ) и Всемирной организации здравоохранения (ВОЗ) выпустили специальный доклад, согласно которому в результате Чернобыльской катастрофы погибли и могут погибнуть лишь 4 тысячи человек, а серьезные отрицательные воздействия на здоровье населения в загрязненных районах отсутствуют. 5 апреля представители "Гринпис" и Брянской областной Думы вместе с научными экспертами Центра независимой экологической экспертизы РАН выступили с опровержением выводов ООН. По расчетам независимых экспертов, дополнительная смертность уже составила для России 67 000 случаев среди населения, проживающего на зараженных землях.

MOSCOW - At least 67,000 people are thought to have died in Russia alone from the after-effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, ecological experts said in Moscow on Wednesday, dismissing a UN estimate of 4,000 past and anticipated deaths.
The low figure produced by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear wing of the United Nations, reflected a desire to bolster public confidence in nuclear power, Greenpeace Russia's energy campaigner Vladimir Chuprov said before the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident.
"The estimates of the IAEA are greatly understated," Chuprov told reporters, citing independent studies by Russian scientists.
"In Russia there were 67,000 additional deaths from 1990 to 2004 (resulting from radiation), if you add the number in Belarus and Ukraine the total will be several times greater."
The estimate was drawn from mortality studies in contaminated regions north of the now decommissioned Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, where two million people live.
Experts at the Russian Academy of Science's Independent Centre for Ecological Studies in St. Petersburg found the death rate there to almost four per cent higher than the national average, likely stemming from long-term exposure to radiation and contaminated food products.
The fourth reactor at the plant overheated and blew up on April 26, 1986, throwing up huge clouds of radioactive particles that were registered in 17 countries.
The Soviet government only acknowledged the disaster to foreign governments two days later and did not inform the population for almost two weeks.
Ukraine finally shut the plant in 2000, although it and Russia still operate reactors of the same type.
In view of plans to build 40 new reactors by 2030, Russian authorities are interested in downplaying the effects of the disaster, enabling them also to cut social compensation programmes for Chernobyl victims, critics say.
Meanwhile, contaminated land is still being farmed and products sold in numerous Russian cities.
"This radiation is spreading across the country and we cannot close our eyes to it," Chuprov said.
In the Bryansk region, which suffered from severe fallout, 30,000 hectares of irradiated woodland is unprotected from the risk of fire, which would emit radioactive smoke, warned Lyudmila Komogortseva, the head of the ecological committee of the regional administration.
"If the forest land catches light then not just Russia but other countries in Europe are in for a real shock," she said.

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innovations report - Bad Homburg, Germany / 10.04.2006

Migrant Birds Put The Clock Forward

Весна в этом году такая поздняя, что в глобальное потепление верится с трудом. Однако фенологи из Института глобального климата и экологии Росгидромета и РАН считают, что климат в европейской части России действительно стал более теплым. Фенология - наука о сезонных явлениях природы, сроках их наступления и причинах, определяющих эти сроки. В отличие от метеорологов, фенологи наблюдают не за температурой и осадками, а за распусканием листьев и сезонными перемещениями животных.

This year, spring is so late that the global climate warming is hardly believable. Is it applicable to Russia? Probably the fact is that weather cataclysms and anomalies are now occuring more and more frequently, and warm autumn gets balanced by frosts and cold spring? Phenologists from the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology of Rosgidromet (Hydrometeorological Committee), Russian Academy of Sciences, decided to find out what was happening in reality in European part of Russia, and analyzed observational data for the last 30 years.
Phenology - is the ancient science about seasonal natural phenomena, times of their occurrence and reasons for these processes. In contrast to meteorologists, phenologists do not measure temperature or precipitations, instead they keep records from year to year about such facts as when plants' buds swell, when leaves, blossom and fruit appear, when animals awaken from hibernation, about seasonal migrations, adult insects going out of chrysalices, etc. As was explained by Alexander Minin, chief research assistant, Doctor of Science (Biology), Institute of Global Climate and Ecology of Rosgidromet, Russian Academy of Sciences, the climate in European part of Russia in general had become warmer indeed.
Judging by majority of attributes, plants' vegetation period (when plants are growing up and developing) has become longer: defoliation begins later and later, and spring comes a bit earlier. Birch tree leaves come out earlier, and bird cherry tree and lime-tree break into bloom earlier. In the northern regions of European part, in the taiga area, these deviations are felt stronger, and the spring comes five days earlier on average than it did in pervious years, but closer to the south, in the moderate climate - it comes only one day earlier. In the south of European part of Russia, for example, near Tambov and Voronezh, there is no shift in dates at all, or, vice versa, spring comes a bit later than it was recorded earlier. As for summer, within the last 30 years, it is slightly cooler in European part of Russia.
Did the dates of birds flying in Russia change? Within 30 years, phenologists have not noticed differences in the arrival of Russian cuckoo birds. But this is a delicate issue, as migrant birds depend on the climate in a more complicated way, it is important for them if birdseeds and place for nests are available. Ornithologists have collected more complete data.
For example, Yuri Galchyonkov and other ornithologists from the Kaluga Division of the Russian Birds' Conservation Union compared the 1989-98 observations with the data of late 19th - early 20th century. It has turned out that common gulls now arrive in environs of Kaluga on average three weeks earlier, rooks, skylarks, starlings, lapwings, swifts and gray herons - approximately two weeks earlier, geese, white wagtails, European swallows, nightingales - one week earlier, and cuckoos, gray cranes and chaffinches - four days earlier. That is, the arrival dates of neighbouring migrants (wintering not far from their homeland within the same climatic zone) shifted to the greatest extent. Once the warm cyclone arrived, the snow disappeared - and neighbouring migrants flied in. If the temperature suddenly fell again - the birds can fly away for a certain time. Besides, it is in the last century in particular that electrification and urbanization transformed Russia, and many neighboring migrants have already adapted themselves rather well to man-caused environment and outlive bad weather in warm towns: some feed at rubbish heaps; others - at thawed patches near heating mains. Birds are not afraid of cold if they are well fed. If winter is mild, then some migrant species even stay in town for winter!
As for distant migrants, among which there are a lot of insectivorous birds, for example, nightingales, chiffchaffs, white wagtails, European swallows, - they hibernate in a different climatic zone. Beginning of their migrations, as researchers believe, to a larger extent is determined by internal condition of the birds themselves. This is rather connected not with weather conditions but with the change of daylight hours' length. However, even global warming is unable to influence that! Therefore, average arrival dates for distant migrants to the area of Kaluga have changed within 120 years only by 2 to 7 days, including that of a cuckoo - by 4 days. Probably, part of this "increase" is explained by closer supervision by the researchers.
Flyways and birds' hibernation locations also change with time. There are a lot of mysteries in birds' migration. What can we expect this spring?

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International Herald Tribune / SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2006

Russia covets China nuclear deals

By David Lague

В течение двадцати лет после аварии на чернобыльской АЭС российское атомное строительство сокращалось, новые проекты не начинались. Сегодня возрождению этой отрасли в России могут способствовать планы Китая по расширению атомной энергетики. Пекин уже высказал желание использовать российскую атомную технологию при строительстве реакторов.

BEIJING - For most of the two decades since the Chernobyl disaster, Russia's nuclear construction industry languished as engineers labored to apply the lessons learned from the accident to improve reactor design and safety.
Power stations that were already under construction in Russia at the time of the 1986 accident went into service but no new plants were started.
Now China's ambitious drive to generate more electricity from nuclear energy is accelerating the revival of a once mighty technical giant.
A Russian nuclear technology exporter, AtomStroyExport, has begun testing the first reactor it has built in China at the Tianwan nuclear power plant in Jiangsu Province.
The general manager of the company's representative office in Beijing, Valeriy Kurochkin, said this unit would begin commercial operation in October.
A second reactor and turbine unit now under construction at the Tianwan plant, located outside the city of Lianyonggang, is scheduled to begin supplying power for the local utility next year.
The company is also optimistic that China will use Russian technology in the construction of two more reactor units at the Tianwan plant.
"The safe and reliable operation of the first unit now under commissioning at the Tianwan nuclear power plant will determine the future of Russian companies in the Chinese nuclear power market," Kurochkin said in an interview.
Orders to build nuclear power plants in India and Iran have also allowed Russia to continue developing its nuclear engineering capability while domestic construction stalled.
Moscow has also thrown its weight behind the Russian nuclear industry's drive to win contracts with Chinese power utilities. On a visit to Beijing last month, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said future cooperation on energy between the two sides should include his country's involvement in the construction of new nuclear reactors.
Ulrik Stidbaek, an electricity market expert at the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said that China's plans to expand its nuclear power sector could make it the fastest-growing market for reactors in the world and that Beijing had already shown it was prepared to embrace Russian nuclear technology.
"All in all, I think China is definitely one of the most, if not the most, important markets at the moment," he said. "That is even more so for Russia."
AtomStroyExport is now locked in a three-way contest with Areva of France and the U.S.-based Westinghouse, a unit of Toshiba, to secure an $8 billion contract to build four advanced reactors for the Chinese power industry.
However, most industry analysts believe the Russian company is a distant third in the running for the contract to build the reactors - two in Guangdong Province and two more in Zhejiang Province.
Kurochkin, a four-decade veteran of Russia's nuclear power industry, refused to comment on speculation surrounding the bidding. But he pointed out that Areva and Westinghouse had both offered to supply reactors that were not yet in commercial operation.
"As far as I know, no decision has been made yet," he said. "But our participation in this tender competition shows our wish to take part in further development of the nuclear power industry in China."
Kurochkin said that his company's existing foothold in China with an advanced reactor design could lead to further orders if China continues to invest heavily in nuclear power. The accident at Chernobyl in what is now Ukraine killed scores of people and could lead to the eventual deaths of up to 4,000 others who were exposed to radioactive contamination, according to a report last year from an international panel of experts.
Some nuclear energy specialists believe that the flawed design of the Chernobyl reactor had contributed to an accident that unfairly tarnished the image of the entire Russian nuclear industry.
They say that Russian technicians had also produced some safe and reliable reactors and that the continued development of these superior designs means that Russia now offers some of the safest and most advanced reactor design and technology in the world.
Ian Hore-Lacy, a spokesman for the World Nuclear Association, a London-based nuclear industry lobby group, said that the reactors installed at Tianwan were close to leading-edge Western designs.
"They are very good units," he said. "I would be happy to live next door to one of them."
However, Hore-Lacy said AtomStroyExport would need to offer lower prices to offset the Western edge in technology.
Russia and China signed a contract to build the two Tianwan reactors in 1997 as part of growing energy cooperation between the two countries.
Up to 150 Russian companies and suppliers along with 600 engineers and nuclear specialists are now working on the Tianwan site in a joint effort with the Chinese nuclear industry that recalls the period before 1960, when China depended heavily on its then Communist neighbor for advanced technology.
Kurochkin declined to disclose the Tianwan contract price but he said that it had involved Russian government financing.
He said the 1,060-megawatt Tianwan units were among the most advanced in the world and very close to the so- called third-generation Western designs.
"Actually, this project includes all the technical characteristics of third-generation plants to some extent," he said.
AtomStroyExport was offering a similar design in competition with the third-generation reactors that Areva and Westinghouse were offering China, he said.
No third-generation reactors are yet in operation in any country.
The resurgence of Russia's reactor construction industry comes at a time when the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions has led to what has been described as a global "renaissance" for nuclear energy.
This, combined with a drop in the stocks of nuclear fuel from decommissioned Soviet-era atomic weapons, has led to sharply increased prices for uranium, which is used to power reactors.
China is at the forefront of this revival as it seeks to satisfy its energy- hungry economy and reduce dependence on the coal-fired power plants that are contributing to the air pollution choking major industrial and urban areas.
There are now nine reactors operating in China and plans to add up to fifty new units, including the two at Tianwan. The investment for all of these projects has been estimated at $50 billion by 2020 in industry publications and reports in the official Chinese media.
Senior Chinese officials say that the share of electricity generated from nuclear power should increase from about 2 percent to more than 4 percent by 2020. Some Chinese industry experts have forecast that nuclear power could account for more than 30 percent of electricity generation by 2060.
After decades where utilities around the world placed very few orders for new reactors, the upcoming Chinese contract is particularly important for Areva and Westinghouse.
For the winner, the opportunity to build a third-generation design could provide a springboard to further business in the United States and Europe.
Beijing had been expected to announce its decision earlier this year, but negotiations are still under way on the terms and degree of technical transfer that the bidders are prepared to offer.
The Chinese authorities have demanded that the bidders share advanced nuclear technology as part of Beijing's efforts to develop its domestic nuclear power industry. A report in the French daily Les Echos last month suggested that Areva was out of contention for the contract because it had refused to meet China's demands to hand over technology for one of its reactors.
Areva has refused to comment on the reports but insists that it is still in the running. The newspaper also reported that Westinghouse had offered to sell the plans for its AP1000 reactor and earn an annual royalty from the power plants.
Industry analysts believe that politics will have a major bearing on Beijing's decision, with the Bush administration lobbying strongly for Westinghouse and the French government backing Areva.
If Westinghouse were to win the order, some analysts suggest that this would be announced when President Hu Jintao of China visits Washington this month. A deal of this size would assist Beijing in its efforts to counter growing U.S. resentment over an annual $202 billion trade deficit with China.