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18 Oct 2017 - First floating wind farm, built by offshore oil company, delivers electricity - Anchored, floating turbines allow offshore wind installations in deep waters.
The world’s first floating offshore wind farm began delivering electricity to the Scottish grid today.

The 30MW installation, situated 25km (15.5mi) from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, will demonstrate that offshore wind energy can be harvested in deep waters, miles away from land, where installing giant turbines was once impractical or impossible. At peak capacity, the wind farm will produce enough electricity to power 20,000 Scottish homes.

The installation, called Hywind Scotland, is also interesting because it was built by Statoil, a Norwegian mega-corporation known for offshore oil drilling. Statoil has pursued offshore wind projects in recent years, using the company's experience building and managing infrastructure in difficult open sea conditions to its advantage.

Hywind Scotland began producing power in September, and today it starts delivering electricity to the Scottish grid.

The five 6MW turbines are the first commercial turbines to lack a firm attachment to the seafloor. The towers extend 176m (577ft) above the water and 78m (256ft) below it. Each tower is capable of pitching its blades to reduce unwanted motion and optimize power output depending on the wind direction and strength.  read more »

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Last Pacific Coast Coal Terminal Nixed - Industry’s dream to export U.S. coal to Asia is dead
The state of Washington's Department of Ecology has rejected a necessary water-quality permit sought by Millennium Bulk Logistics for its proposed coal-export terminal at Longview, Washington. Barring a successful appeal of the decision, this means the end of the line not only for Millennium's dream of building the largest coal-export facility in North America, but also for the coal industry's larger scheme to ship vast amounts of U.S. coal to Asian markets.

"This is the end," says Bruce Nilles, senior campaign director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "Almost exactly seven years ago, Peabody Coal proposed its first project to move huge amounts of coal around the globe. This is a testament to the tens of thousands of people who raised their voices and said, 'Hell no.'"

Shipping coal abroad was supposed to be a lifeline for the U.S. coal industry, given plummeting domestic demand as renewables became cost-competitive with fossil fuels. With vast coal reserves readily available in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, coal companies pinned their hopes on exporting it to Asia via seven proposed terminals on the West Coast. With Longview blocked, coal opponents are now seven for seven in stopping those terminals. (The others were to be at Cherry Point and Grays Harbor in Washington; Port Westward, Coos Bay, and Port of Morrow in Oregon; and Oakland, California.)

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Domino Loft system, designed by Charles Irby of ICOSA and Peter Suen

Zoku Hybrid Live-Work Hotel

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8 clever modern micro-apartments that live big
Micro-apartments are becoming more popular in cities where the demand for housing is growing, and the supply of affordable real estate is shrinking. From New York, to San Francisco and London, micro-living spaces that measure 500 square feet or less are becoming a trend, offering renters and buyers something smaller but less expensive. Nevertheless, these tiny spaces often packed with built-in amenities like transformer furniture, or if they are part of a multi-unit development, generous communal spaces to compensate for the tinier private quarters.

Domino Loft System
Our first look is at the Domino Loft system, designed by Charles Irby of ICOSA and Peter Suen for a young couple. The system consists of prefabricated concrete panels, wood slats and custom-made cabinetry, and is configured as an all-in-one unit that can transform into a dining room, workspace and guest room on the bottom level. On top, one can find the sleeping loft, which also doubles as a perch to watch films projected onto a wall on the other side of the space. Multifunctional designs such as this help to give more privacy to each occupant and augment what would be an other tiny space.

Zoku Hybrid Live-Work Hotel  read more »

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Medical Error: This Lung Cancer Tumor Was Actually a Tiny Toy Cone Inhaled 40 Years Ago
In what may be among the strangest medical diagnoses of the year, a British man was told that he did not have lung cancer tumor, but instead had swallowed a plastic toy cone 40 years earlier. Experts say this case isn’t as isolated as we may think; inhaling toys is actually a pretty big problem for small children.

Kids inhaling and swallowing foreign objects is a serious problem. According to Medline Plus, children aged one to three are at greatest risk for this. An object can become trapped in the throat and cause choking, and once inhaled, it can lead to infection or inflammation. The objects most commonly swallowed or inhaled are coins, buttons and beads, but as shown in this case study really anything is fair game.

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Photo courtesy @HotpageNews

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Roger Federer, at 35, wins Wimbledon for a record eighth time
WIMBLEDON, England - Roger Federer, who won Wimbledon at 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 30, won it again Sunday at 35, further cramming his name into a men’s tennis record book in which it appears almost as rampantly as it would in a biography.

At 35 years, 342 days old, he became the oldest Wimbledon champion in the Open Era, as well as the oldest Grand Slam champion since Ken Rosewall won the Australian Open in 1972, a category in which Federer surpassed the 2017 Australian Open champion Roger Federer. He also extended his Grand Slam title total to 19 to arrange an arrival in New York in late August with a stunning yet realistic chance at 20, which would have seemed farfetched only six months ago.

Back in mid-January, Federer had just come off a six-month hiatus in deference to a left knee that kept yelling for attention on court while he tried to plot strategic points. With that knee rested, Federer up and won the Australian Open from a No. 17 seed, and set off on a year he has called "a fairy tale"”  read more »

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Deadly Heat Waves Threaten Third of the World
Currently, nearly a third of the world's population is exposed to lethal climate conditions for at least 20 days a year, according to findings published Monday in Nature Climate Change, a monthly peer-reviewed journal. As the planet's temperature rises, more of the world's population will be exposed to conditions that trigger deadly heat waves, the report said.

For a city like New York, which currently sees about two days per year that surpass the heat threshold, that could mean 50 deadly days per year by 2100.

The researchers analyzed more than 1,900 cases of fatalities associated with heat waves in 164 cities across 36 countries between 1980 and 2014 to define a global threshold for life-threatening conditions based on heat and humidity. Researchers found the overall risk for heat-related sickness or death has increased steadily since 1980.

The study notes well-documented heat waves, including a five-day stretch that claimed hundreds of lives in Chicago in 1995, the European heat wave in 2003 that saw tens of thousands of heat-related deaths and lethal temperatures in Moscow in 2010 that killed more than 10,000. Across Russia, the heat wave in 2010 claimed more than 50,000 lives. But the research team found that heatwaves are more common than most people think, and humidity levels combined with heat play a major role in heat-related heath risks.  read more »