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Wind-turbines on a track? cheaper even than other forms?

Above, is an interesting video done by one of the more popular youtubers in this space. It looks at a fascinating new idea about how we could harness the wind.

You might well ask, why do we need a new way? and that is a good question. The simple fact is that in the current model that we use with the standard wind turbine, they are reaching the biggest size that they can possibly be (there is a wind turbine in China, which is 50 storeys high). It is likely the simplest way to harness wind power at sea, but what about power for a single building or a small village? This new way of harnessing the wind has got Bill Gates attention with a cost of roughly 1/3. Being only 25m tall rather than the normal height, it could be placed in far more places, without reducing the power given. Furthermore, on this system, the whole of each blade actually helps pull around the track, rather than just the tip. It is true that these are early in their process, but why is this useful. Well with this idea, you could for instance put a track over a long terrace of houses, or even over a stretch of motorways. Furthermore, it is possible to put all of the parts of an 2.5mw turbine inside a single lorry.

Installation costs are Airloom energy $0.21  per watt installed, vs wind farm $1.25 per watt on standard wind turbines. Multiplying that up, Airloom would cost $210,000 per megawatt hour, while a windfarm would cost $1,250,000. Looking at it differently, if Airloom succeeds, you would be able to install almost 6megawatt hours of Airloom for every megawatt hour of normal wind turbine. It should be noted that in recent times, solar has overtaken wind as the cheapest form of electricity generation. This to reverse this gain for a very long time. 

 

 

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Indonesia to start a study to see whether the Javan Tiger is actually extinct (44 years after it was declared so)

I wrote a few moths ago, about a picture taken in Java, which purported to show a living Javan tiger. As with many similar photos, it was of low resolution, which in many situations, would appear suspicious. If you are on safari in Java, you would think that you would take a high resolution camera, and that this would be within reach at all times, as such the resolution is not really explained well enough.

Having only gone extinct in the 1970s, there are thought to have been a few Javan tigers held in Zoos, though if they were they have been bred into extinction by mixing with other subspecies. The Ringling Brothers Circus, around 1915, was said to have 2 (one in the image above

The latest study has been started after a hair was tested and found to be from a Javan tiger – but recently.

Now, before I say anything, I have to say that I would love the Javan tiger to still survive. However, the simple fact is that they have not been seen in the wild since the early 1980s.

Continue reading “Indonesia to start a study to see whether the Javan Tiger is actually extinct (44 years after it was declared so)”

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The telegraph has put out an article suggesting that homegrown food has 5 times greater carbon footprint than conventional: is that right? Should we all end our allotments?

Looking at the busy mass of growing green, it is hard to see how this is the most inefficient way to grow food…

The study that the article is based on comes from the university of Michigan, and is frankly badly, badly made. It is the quintessential study, where this is the answer, now how do we get there, sort of study.

So, what did they do? Well, they put gardens into 3 different categories

  • Backyard gardens – single occupancy
  • communal gardens (like the above)
  • Urban farms

Your backyard garden has about as small a carbon footprint as it is possible to have, it is possible that fruit or veg from here actually has zero carbon footprint. Community gardens can be a bit different – you have a small area, so you might use more compost or fertilizer, and it is possibly further from where you live, so you might drive to it. However, this kind of place also has a low carbon footprint.

It is essentially just the Urban farms which are a problem here: growlights and watering and temperature controls all add up to large quantities of energy.

This video shows this is an easy way to understand.

Do not be put off! If you have an allotment or a vegetable patch in your garden, this is almost completely carbon free food, it does bring down your carbon footprint.

It is unfortunately the kind of study you can find in a newspaper like the Telegraph; I do not think it would be a surprise for any readers to hear, that this is not the place readers go to find out about the new scientific studies of this kind.

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White whale spotted near Shetland!

This is not a melanistic whale, instead it is a beluga whale, which is usually white. Filmed in January it is only the sixth time that this species has been sighted in Scottish waters, generally living in the icy arctic waters.

This species has around 150,000 individuals left in the wild, making them more safe than many species. However, living in the Arctic where global warming is changing things fast, we need to remain viligant, as it could be quite a different situation after not much time.

To view our page on Beluga whales, and any other mention that the species has had in the past, click here

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The critically endangered Regent honeyeater may have new hope

This critically endangered species of honeyeater has a renewed hope of survival. They have become so rare, that the juveniles have started mimicking other bird species, because they hear the sounds of their own species so rarely.

The new speck of hope comes from the fact that captive birds have bred after being released.

There are an estimated 2200 species in Australia which are in some way endangered. This species is endangered for the same reason that many of these are – loss of habitat. Agricultural land, forest clearing, logging and the expansion of coal seam gas drilling was predicted to wipe out this bird, but thankfully they have survived.

Around 140 birds have been released to help bolster the population and have been shown to have bred with wild birds. With just 300 wild birds left, every extra breeding bird can make a large difference.

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Rishi Sunak continuing to face pressure over plans to max out North Sea Oil

I wrote a month ago, about Rishi Sunak and the foolish plans of the UK government to try to max out oil production from the North Sea. The governments argument was that it would help bring down costs for UK people.

This is an image from a youtube video suggesting that Rishi Sunak has investments that will benefit from this move. Whether this is true or not, he will be remembered as a prime minister who locked the UK into oil and gas at a time where the best financial move, as well as climate move is to divest fast. Should you wish to see this video yourself, Click here I would argue a fascinating subject, but beyond the scope of this site.

Unfortunately, this argument bares no water, as the extracted fossil fuels would be sold on the open market, and there would be no discount at all in the UK. As such, this will do nothing to help the UK people save money, merely give some fossil fuel companies some money, and potentially some tax revenue for the UK government, though whether this is worth the costs that will have to be paid is the future is being questioned increasingly loudly.

What is unfortunately clear, is that the things that are going to be best for the UK public is additional insulation in houses, and renewable energy. Unfortunately these are two projects which the government is increasingly eager to turn its back on.

The green housing grants, during Covid, were aimed at improving the housing stock of the UK, and it did, but only for around 1% of the houses that need to be dealt with. Furthermore, this was really a boost for the building firms, rather than the green housing grants in particular – they charged as much as possible, and the work did not really continue after the end of the period in question.

Why politicians keep spouting information that is so easily destroyed is hard to understand. It seems hard to believe that a man with the amount of money that Rishi Sunak and his wife has, would be influenced by the performance of his investment, however, given where we are going, I would argue that investing in fossil fuel extraction is a foolish move – whether in the next decade or further ahead, the fossil fuel industry must die, and it is likely to happen fast when it truly starts. Rishi Sunak has been accused of dodging scrutiny on this subject by failing to appoint a climate change committee chair (for over 18 months since Lord Deben retired) – and now the independent watchdogs chief executive has resigned in frustration. Given this position was there to keep the government to account on climate change and changes that will limit its effect

What is Rishi Sunak afraid of? Either he is attempting to avoid scrutiny, or he is incompetent – which is it?

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A species back from extinction? A species of pine tree thought extinct for 2 million years has been found in Australia

Known as the Wollemi pine, the species evolved 91 million years ago, and was thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago. However, in the blue mountains, west of Sydney a stand of 90 of these trees have been found. They were found in 1994, but their discovery has been kept quiet till now, while the national parks service of Australia has been planting small clumps of this tree in many other locations, in order to avoid this tree being lost in an accident.

This is a rare positive bit of news in a world where literally millions of species are considered endangered, from species of plant that you might never have heard of, to animals like the lion. We do not have time to celebrate for long, we must make sure as many others as possible will survive into the future.

It is sad to think that it is far harder to find animals or birds that are in a similar situation. This would be the equivalent of some dinosaur being found somewhere. What else is waiting to be found?

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Mink have been eradicated from East Anglia, now the country?

Mink are an invasive species, which have arrived in the UK for fur farms and then either escaped, or been released by so called ‘animal lovers’.

While I do not approve of mink farms, this is a very foolish behaviour. The American mink, not surprisingly, is not a native of the UK, and while there is a European mink, it has never been present in the UK.

So, why are they problematic? Well, like any invasive species, they tend to hunt in different ways to native species, and can rapidly eradicate species that have always lived here,

In the UK, the species that is most at risk is the water vole! Since the arrival of the mink, it has been lost from most of the UK. They are essential for healthy rivers and as such mink cause damage (they also take many water birds).

The wildlife recovery trust, set up a defensive wall of traps, around this county, and used scent from the minks own glands to tempt in the species. This has been incredibly successful, and they have been declared extinct in the county (once caught they are shot).

Conservationists are now planning to extend this method to the rest of the UK. Thankfully, a second line of defence is reappearing – the otter. Reduced to near extinction by pollutants in the waterways, they have recovered over the last 20 years, and generally push mink out, fast, when they return to a waterway.

For the first time, there is hope that we might eradicate this animal that has done so much damage to the UK waterways environment.

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More than 20 indigenous groups have called on the Australian government to stop culling Dingoes

For indigenous communities, killing dingoes are a cultural icon, and for them killing them is tantamount to killing a family member.

This has been raised more forcefully, after recent surveys showed that the Australian dingo is actually genetically very pure.

Given their classification of being native species, they should not be culled.

It is true that there is some question as to when the dingo arrived in Australia, and whether it arrived with early humans, however that would still mean that they arrived 50,000 years ago, which would definitely make them native in almost any regular description.

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Swearing parrots

Obviously not the first place in the world to have this problem, but Lincolnshire wildlife park has 8 grey parrots and they have started swearing.

The zoo has in the past, isolated the bird, in the hopes of this behaviour not spreading. Now they are trying a different tack, by putting the rude birds in with many more, in the hopes that these birds will learn some more polite words from the rest of the bird flock

This video shows them using a swear word almost instantly.

As you can see, the parrot will mimic any language, and so this is not the first time, and wont be the last.

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