The University of Louisville men’s soccer team has taken second place in the NCAA College Cup.
The Cardinals lost 1-0 to the University of Akron Sunday in the championship game. U of L had previously beaten North Carolina in the semi-finals.
This is Akron’s first NCAA championship in any team sport.
As groups react to Governor Steve Beshear’s energy plan for the state, uncertainties remain about how the plan will be implemented. The plan proposes creating a Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard. It would require 25 percent of Kentucky’s energy to come from some renewable sources but also from increased energy efficiency by the year 2025. Energy and Environment Cabinet secretary Len Peters says the emphasis will be on efficiency, and power plants will not be required to meet any particular target.
“We are not breaking it down according to industry by industry by industry. Eighteen percent of it comes from energy efficiency. We think that’s a reasonable goal,” says Peters.
In contrast, North Carolina is requiring power plants to meet up to 12 and a half percent of their energy needs through renewable sources and efficiency measures. Peters says it’s unclear whether Kentucky will make the standard law or just use it as a policy guideline.
Perhaps you’ve seen the news stories about the 21-year-old mother of two who survived for five days, pinned in her truck, after she swerved off a North Carolina road and landed nearly 100 feet below in a ravine? If not, here’s a quick synopsis:
Search and rescue teams combed the 20 mile area around her home. Sections of that road happen to be overrun with kudzu, the invasive vine species that can blanket and choke entire tree stands. Kudzu veiled the ravine far below, obscuring the smashed up truck in which she lay pinned. On the fifth day of searching, one rescuer noticed some track marks into the kudzu, tell-tale signs of tires, gone off the road. Rescuers rappelled down into the ravine behind those tracks, and finally found her. 
An amazing story. The focus, and rightly so, has been on this young woman’s will to live, the near-miraculous fact that she made it so long with broken bones, including a skull fracture, and possible internal injuries, without sustenance.
But the environmental reporter in me can’t help obsessing about the kudzu part of the story. If we had found the magic bullet to control this invasive species, if we hacked down vast networks of it, would rescuers have spotted her sooner? Or are there reasons we should let it run wild, reasons having to do with the difficulty of controlling it? Kudzu is notoriously hard to kill. It has an extensive root system. It’s very hardy. And it grows so dense, dense enough to obscure an accident.