alternative-energy

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Bertrand Piccard - "The pioneer is not always the one who succeeds, but the one who is not scared to fail." 'Zephyr is the world's first and only truly persistent aeroplane,' said Neville Salkeld, MD of QinetiQ's UK Technology Solutions Group. This amazing aircraft, launched by hand, can provide low-cost, non-stop surveillance over persistent surveillance and communications capability measured in terms of weeks, if not months. Not only is Zephyr game-changing technology, it is also significantly more cost effective to manufacture and deploy than traditional aircraft and satellites.'

British solar-powered unmanned drone finally lands after flying non-stop for two weeks: It has more than doubled the unofficial record of more than 82 hours already held by Zephyr and has smashed the official record of more than 30 hours set in 2001  read more »

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Aviation News [July 8, 2010] Swiss Plane Completes First Solar-Powered Overnight Flight
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA, a Swiss solar-powered plane, completed the first non-stop night flight on solar energy after flying 26 hours and 9 minutes. It was the longest solar flight at the highest altitude in aviation history, Solar Impulse announced on Thursday.

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA has a huge wingspan, equal to the Airbus A340’s 63.4 meters. It includes approximately 12,000 photovoltaic cells, most of them on the wing and around 880 on the horizontal stabilizer.

The plane took off on Wednesday morning from the Payerne airbase with André Borscherg, CEO and co-founder of the Solar Impulse project, at the controls. The HB-SIA flew at an altitude of 8,500 meters until 11:00 p.m., when the sun rays stop being enough to supply the solar cells.  read more »

How Much Oil Has Leaked Into the Gulf of Mexico? (PBS NewsHour)

The hole dug 3 to 4 miles into fragile Earth crust that no one can seal... The Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to gush while many of the coastal animals are currently in their reproductive seasons.

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A dead turtle floats on a pool of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in Barataria Bay off the coast of Louisiana.

A laughing gull coated in heavy oil wallows in the surf June 4, 2010 on East Grand Terre Island, Louisiana. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident is coming ashore in large volumes across southern Louisiana coastal areas.

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BP has dumped about 160,000 gallons of Corexit – chemical dispersant made by the Nalco Company - in the Gulf (as well as pumping 6,000 gallons more all the way down to the leak location). The dispersant particles bind to oil, sink, and are carried away by ocean currents. But while that could help keep a spill from reaching the shores en masse, it means the oil isn’t actually “cleaned up,” but rather diluted. And the dispersant chemicals themselves can be dangerous. Nalco’s own documents go into detail about compounds that must be handled with great care in their original form, that should not touch the skin and can damage lungs.

Top: Gulf oil spill: giant containment box towed to site. BP tows a huge dome into the Gulf of Mexico, but it is far from certain whether it can stop the oil gushing from the seafloor.Efforts on Wednesday to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill centered on a towering metal box the size of a four-story building that engineering teams hope will corral the crude that continues to spout from the seafloor. Bottom: Oil from the massive Deepwater Horizon spill is seen on the surface of the water in Breton and Chandeleur Sound, off the Louisiana coast.  read more »

Top: "Large Air Spill at Wind Farm. No threats reported. Some claim to enjoy the breeze.". Bottom: in Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes, burns, sinks (2 days later on Earth Day).

Gulf Oil Spill: ~210,000 gallons of oil leaking per day.

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Avatar director James Cameron played a part in halting an industrial development project that threatens indigenous people of the Amazon.

Palm oil plantation. Inset: deforestation by a logging company around a Penan village in the Middle Baram region in Sarawak.

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The Avatar director and one of its stars have played a part in halting an industrial development project that threatens indigenous people of the Amazon. Earlier this week, we brought you the story of James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver's trip to Brazil to raise awareness of the indigenous communities’ battles to stop the massive Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Amazon rainforest. We are now happy to report that the Dam Project Auctions have been canceled, and both stars are now in Washington DC for meetings with US Government officials.

Judge Antonio Carlos de Almeida Campelo granted a preliminary injunction (urgent) seeing “danger of irreparable harm” considering the imminence of the auction. The decision is the result of the assessment of one of two public civil actions filed by federal prosecutors dealing with irregularities of the enterprise. It focuses specifically on the lack of regulation of Article 176 of the Federal Constitution of Brazil, which requires the issuing of an ordinary law for the use of hydraulic potential on Indian lands.  read more »

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Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, was catastrophically affected by the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake  read more »

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