Gizmorama
August 18, 2010
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Good Morning,
Get caught up on an increasingly important know-how: energy
savings. The third article describes how most American's are
oblivious to how to save energy while giving an insight to
improvement. This is an article everyone should read.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new
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China builds spacecraft for new mission
BEIJING - China has completed building its first unmanned
space module and is testing its electronic, mechanical and
thermal properties, a Chinese military source said. The
Tiangong-1 space module is expected to take part in China's
first space docking with the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft, which
will be launched after the Tiangong-1 in the second half of
2011, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Tues-
day. The Shenzhou-8 is currently under construction and
testing of the Long March II_F launch rocket is under way,
Xinhua said. Chinese astronauts, including two females, are
reportedly undergoing training for the space docking. Two
other spacecraft, the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10, will be
launched in 2012 and will also dock with Tiangong-1, the
source said.
Australia looks to ocean waves for energy
WASHINGTON - Researchers say ocean waves off the southern
coast of Australia have the potential to generate as much
as half of the country's current electricity needs. Interest
is growing in wave energy as a viable source of renewable
electricity generation as the world faces dwindling fossil
fuels supplies, an American Institute of Physics release
said Monday. Wave-energy developers, however, face the prob-
lem that all previous estimates of wave-energy potential
were based on data from deep ocean waters, while "wave-energy
generation systems are typically positioned near to shore,"
Australian physical oceanographer Mark Hemer says. In a jour-
nal article, Hemer and his colleagues have made new estimates
of the wave-energy potential of Australia's southern near-
shore regions, and have calculated what percentage of the
country's energy needs could be supplied by wave energy alone.
Hemer says if 10 percent of the near-shore wave energy avail-
able along Australia's Southern coastline could be converted
into electricity, it could meet half of the country's present-
day annual electricity consumption of 130,000 gigawatt-hours.
Wave energy offers a "massive resource" to contribute to the
Australian Government's aim of producing 45,000 gigawatt-
hours a year of additional renewable energy before 2020,
Hemer said. "Convert 10 percent of available wave energy
from a 1000-km stretch in this area to electricity, " Hemer
says, and "the quota could be achieved by wave energy alone."
Study: Americans unclear on energy saving
NEW YORK - Americans are generally in the dark when it comes
to the most efficient ways to save energy, U.S. researchers
say. A survey by Columbia University researchers found the
majority believe they can save energy with small changes in
lifestyles, while completely underestimating the major ef-
fects of changing over to efficient, currently available
technology, a university release said Monday. The largest
group, nearly 20 percent, said turning off lights was the
best approach -- an action that affects energy budgets rela-
tively little, researchers say. Very few thought about pur-
chase decisions like more efficient cars that experts say
could significantly cut U.S. energy consumption, the survey
found. In general, the survey author says, people tend to
believe in what she calls curtailment. "That is, keeping
the same behavior, but doing less of it," Shahzeen Attari
of Columbia University's Earth Institute said. "But switching
to efficient technologies generally allows you to maintain
your behavior, and save a great deal more energy." As an ex-
ample, she cited high-efficiency light bulbs that can be kept
on all the time and still save more than minimizing the use
of low-efficiency ones. People typically are willing to take
one or two actions to address a perceived problem, Attari
says, but after that they start to believe they have done
all they can. "Of course we should be doing everything we
can. But if we're going to do just one or two things, we
should focus on the big energy-saving behaviors," Attari
said. "People are still not aware of what the big savers
are."
Puzzle of Antarctic ice solved?
ATLANTA - Arctic sea ice is shrinking due to climate change
but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has grown slightly and
U.S. researchers say they may have figured out why. Scien-
tists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have presented
a possible solution to the conundrum at the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Science, ScienceDaily.com reported
Tuesday. As the atmosphere warms, the researchers say, the
water cycle of moisture from land and ocean into the atmos-
phere accelerates, causing more precipitation in the Southern
Ocean surrounding Antarctica. The increased precipitation,
mostly in the form of snow, stabilizes the upper ocean and
insulates it from the ocean heat below, Jiping Liu, a re-
search scientist in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmos-
pheric Sciences, says. The insulating effect reduces the
amount of melting occurring below the sea ice, he says, and
the snow has a tendency to reflect atmospheric heat away
from the sea ice, which reduces melting from above. Climate
models predict greenhouse gases will continue to increase
in the 21st century, reaching a tipping point that will re-
sult in sea ice melting at a faster rate from both above and
below, another researcher says. The finding "raises some
interesting possibilities about what we might see in the
future," Judith A. Curry, chair of the School of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences says. "We may see, on a time scale of
decades, a switch in the Antarctic, where the sea ice extent
begins to decrease."
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