10-05-07

The dirty 30

WWF publishes a list about the 30 least efficient powerplants in Europe. Greece's Agios Dimitrios powerplant scores as the worst in Europe. But also German politicians and powersuppliers should have a close look at the list: Half of the top 12 is occupied by German powerplants.. Especially the old brown coal fired plants in North-Rhine-Westfalia are a "brown" spot on the map.

see the complete list

read about Germany's plans about coal-fired powerplants

April 2007

China makes artificial snow fall in Tibet

For the first time China has succeeded in creating artificial snow. On April 10th the Tibet meteorological station carried out an artificial snowfall operation in an altitude of 4500 metres in northern Tibet. Tibet had experienced a warmer winter this year. The average temperature on the plateau was 2.7 degrees higher than in normal years. Because of that, the glaciers of the Himalaya started melting. Researchers alerted that as a result of this Chinese rivers would dry out and this could lead to droughts, sandstorms and devastation.

After the artificial snowfall one centimetre of snow could be measured on the ground. Now researchers hope that this artificial precipitate could help to avoid droughts in the veld of northern Tibet. It isn’t known, how exactly the snow was generated. In former years sometimes chemicals like silver iodide were used to generate artificial rain.

Xinhua: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/18/content_5993695.htm

Reuters : http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSPEK997720070418

April 2007

Dial4light - Street lights can be switched on by cell phone

The town of Lemgo in Northwestern Germany has found a new way for saving energy. In Lemgo they switch off the street lights at 11 pm. But people can switch them on again for 15 minutes by sending an SMS to the public utility company. They are charged 50 cents for 15 minutes of light. Technically this project is rather simple: In the control boxes there are modems installed . If anybody sends an SMS to the public utility company, the signal will be forwarded to the control boxes and the lights will turn on. In the street lights are used modern bulbs that start lighting very quickly and use little electricity. At the moment this project is tested on a route of 2 kilometres, but they are already planning to extend it into the whole city. Many other cities in Germany have already started negotiating with the town of Lemgo which has filed a patent on this idea.

Interview with one of the inventors of this project: http://staff.tpjcian.net/chu_chee_chin/dailforlight.htm

Lemgo in GoogleEarth