Month: May 2017

Uncategorized 12 May 2017

Good News: Planet Earth Covered In Much More Forests Than Thought

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

An area of forest more than half the size of Australia has been discovered, dotted across several continents. The amount discovered is equivalent to 60 per cent of the size of Australia and has increased the estimate of global forest coverage by 10 per cent.

Researchers from the University of Adelaide are among the team led by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to have uncovered the 467 hectares of previously unreported forests and woodlands.

The forests have been identified in drylands in the Sahara desert, around the Mediterranean, southern Africa, central India, coastal Australia, western South America, north-east Brazil, northern Colombia and Venezuela and northern parts of Canada and Russia.

They have previously been difficult to measure because the density of trees is low, making them hard to detect using satellite images and other technologies.

A new photo-interpretation tool developed at the FAO, called Collect Earth, has overcome this challenge by offering a simple way to check the number and density of trees in arid areas.

Researchers from 15 organisations have used the tool to analyse very high-resolution satellite images of more than 210,000 dryland monitoring sites, discovering the new forests and woodlands in the process.

The amount discovered is equivalent to 60 per cent of the size of Australia and has increased the estimate of global forest coverage by 10 per cent.

Full story

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

May 12, 2017 at 12:30AM

Uncategorized 12 May 2017

German Solar Energy: From “Technology Of the Future ” To Extinction In Just 10 Years!

via NoTricksZone
http://notrickszone.com

Spiegel here calls it “the end of an era”.

Once ballyhooed as the technology of the future bearing the promise of economic revival in Germany, solar equipment manufacturing has crumbled and gone the way of dinosaurs, all in a matter of a decade. So rapidly can economic evolution send subsidized industries into extinction.

Germany’s last remaining major solar manufacturer, Bonn-based Solarworld, led by a flamboyant Frank Asbeck, has officially declared it will file for insolvency after 6 years of red ink (operating results). The announcement was made Wednesday.

Shattered dreams

Thousands of workers who banked their futures on solar jobs now face uncertain futures. Solarworld’s demise is the last in a spectacular series of solar manufacturer bankruptcies that swept across Germany over the past years, with names like Solon, Solar Millenium and Q-Cells going under.

According to Finanzen.net here, Solarworld had over 3000 employees on the payroll at the end of 2016.

In the early 2000s leaders and green energy proponents promised to turn parts of former communist East Germany into a “Solar Valley” that would boast secure, high paying hightech jobs. Today it’s a solar rustbelt with a ruined landscape of shattered visions and dreams. Spiegel calls it a “valley of tears”.

Maserati-driving Green Party co-founder

Solarworld was viewed as the German solar industry’s leader, and its director Asbeck was called the “sun king” and even had solar panels installed on the Vatican and met Pope Benedict XVI personally.

Asbeck, one of the co-founders of the German Green Party and an avid owner of a 300 hp Maserati, blames the company’s woes mainly on cheap imports from China and legal battles in the USA, reports WirtschaftsWoche. Asbeck is reported by Wikipedia to also own expensive properties, such as Schloss Calmuth, Villa Cahn and Schloss Marienfels, Remagen (below):

One of Frank Asbeck’s houses, Schloss Marienfels. Image by Wolkenkratzer – CC BY-SA 3.0

In 2016 Solarworld posted a 92 million euro loss. Solarworld’s subsidiary companies are also expected to declare insolvency. The insolvency signifies the end of the manufacture of solar components and technology in the country.

via NoTricksZone http://notrickszone.com

May 12, 2017 at 12:10AM

Uncategorized 12 May 2017

CO2 Can’t Cause the Warming Alarmists Claim it Does

via Climate Change Dispatch
http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

One of the problems with this climate change issues is that it is so vaguely defined, in very very unscientific terminology. Climate alarmists will claim that man is impacting the climate, and immediately demand taxpayer funding every one of their pet projects that they can tie to climate change. There is no doubt man can […]

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

May 11, 2017 at 11:57PM

Uncategorized 12 May 2017

Wave Swell plans wave device deployment off Tasmania

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
http://ift.tt/1WIzElD

Credit: Wave Swell Energy

It’s essentially an artificial blowhole according to the company CEO. They say the device uses resonance to make the most energy out of the water that washes into it, by operating at the natural frequency of the waves, and claim it’s ‘120% more efficient than a conventional device’.

Wave Swell Energy plans to install a commercial scale wave energy plant in the Bass Strait, off King Island in Tasmania, reports Tidal Energy Today.

Wave Swell’s series of one-megawatt generators will cost up to $7 million to build, and at peak times will provide up to half the power for King Island’s 1,600 residents, according to the Australian Maritime College (AMC).

The Australian-based wave energy developer said it expects the cost of wave power to be less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour when built at scale.

The news follows the testing of Wave Swell’s device in AMC’s shallow water basin which demonstrated the technology was ready for commercialization, and found the performance of the device was at least 120% more efficient than a conventional device, according to AMC.

Tom Denniss, CEO of Wave Swell Energy, said: “The results indicate the technology is ready to assume its place as part of the world’s commercial energy generation mix, with a strong potential to be among the very lowest cost sources of power within a few years.”

Wave Swell Energy’s design is a concrete gravity structure that sits on the seabed at the water depth of 10 meters. It is based on the oscillating water column concept, which acts like an artificial blowhole with water rising and falling inside a chamber.

AMC said Wave Swell introduced novel vents that allow the air to escape from the chamber as a wave enters. The vents then close and as the wave passes, it draws air through the turbine. This has two significant advantages, according to AMC, as the venting of the chamber when the wave enters reduces damping, meaning more water enters the chamber – resulting in an increase in efficiency.

This means that a simpler, more robust and efficient unidirectional turbine can be used, rather than a bi-directional turbine used by conventional wave energy converters of this type, AMC said.

Gregor Macfarlane, Associate Professor who led the research at AMC, said: “With advanced measurement techniques using laser diagnostics, we looked very closely at how water flows in and out of the chamber. This allowed us to modify the geometry of the device to make further significant improvements in efficiency.”

The AMC team also performed experiments in extreme weather conditions to measure the loads experienced by the concrete structure. The information has been used by the structural engineers to ensure the concrete device will withstand the conditions of the Southern Ocean over a 25-year period, AMC said.

Source: Wave Swell plans wave device deployment off Tasmania | Tidal Energy Today