Scientists have long been tracking the migration of sea turtles as they work to protect them from extinction.
Their work, at times, has included tracking the migration patterns of individual turtles.
Recently, one leatherback sea turtle traveled 12,774 miles from Indonesia to Oregon, one of the longest recorded migrations of any vertebrate animal and a record for a sea turtle.
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest of all living turtles and are widely distributed throughout the world’s oceans.
They have been seen in the waters off Argentina, Tasmania, Alaska and Nova Scotia. Adult leatherbacks periodically migrate from their temperate foraging grounds to breeding grounds in the tropics.
Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service tracked one female nester, who was tagged on Jamursba-Medi beach in Papua, Indonesia, on her journey back to her foraging grounds off the coast of Oregon.
She was tracked for 647 days covering a distance about equal to two round trips between New York and Los Angeles.
The longest measured annual migration for any animal is the 40,000-mile journey between New Zealand and the North Pacific of the sooty shearwater puffin, a medium-sized seabird.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
"Oh, It's The Alkylate's Fault..."
Experts are predicting pump prices, which jumped by almost a dollar a gallon in each of the last two springs in many parts of the United States, will spike again this year as refiners and gas stations switch from winter- to summer-blended fuels.
The increases, starting as early as February in southern California, could push the average national price to a record $3.50 a gallon or more by June. Prices in urban areas on each coast could approach $4 a gallon.
And the reason for the spring price shocks? Analysts say it’s linked to a shortage of alkylate, a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.”
It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago when the potentially cancer-causing additive was found to be seeping into ground water.
The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of (alkylate) will set the price of summer gasoline — not inventory levels,” he said.
Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a by-product of the oil refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output, and alkylate prices today are more than 15 percent higher than spot gasoline prices.
That means overall costs will jump when it is added in larger quantities to summer-blend fuels.
Without additives, gasoline doesn’t burn completely, increasing tailpipe air pollution. And untreated gas evaporates more quickly in hot weather, potentially causing vapor lock when it changes from a liquid to a gas and blocks fuel lines.
The federal government long ago required refiners to boost the oxygen content of summer-blend gasoline to make it burn more completely, a problem that was solved by adding MTBE and, more recently, ethanol.
But ethanol also has a high evaporation rate, so refiners increasingly have turned to alkylate, which Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., calls the “magic bullet” in making summer gasoline.
The increases, starting as early as February in southern California, could push the average national price to a record $3.50 a gallon or more by June. Prices in urban areas on each coast could approach $4 a gallon.
And the reason for the spring price shocks? Analysts say it’s linked to a shortage of alkylate, a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.”
It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago when the potentially cancer-causing additive was found to be seeping into ground water.
The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of (alkylate) will set the price of summer gasoline — not inventory levels,” he said.
Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a by-product of the oil refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output, and alkylate prices today are more than 15 percent higher than spot gasoline prices.
That means overall costs will jump when it is added in larger quantities to summer-blend fuels.
Without additives, gasoline doesn’t burn completely, increasing tailpipe air pollution. And untreated gas evaporates more quickly in hot weather, potentially causing vapor lock when it changes from a liquid to a gas and blocks fuel lines.
The federal government long ago required refiners to boost the oxygen content of summer-blend gasoline to make it burn more completely, a problem that was solved by adding MTBE and, more recently, ethanol.
But ethanol also has a high evaporation rate, so refiners increasingly have turned to alkylate, which Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., calls the “magic bullet” in making summer gasoline.
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