After offices and homes, now it’s the turn of a stadium to go solar. The world’s largest solar stadium named Stade De Suisse has shown the path that all stadiums should follow.
Located in Bern, Switzerland, the stadium originally had 7930 solar panels made by Kyocera installed, but recently an additional 2808 solar cells have also added. This addition in solar panels made the stadium generate an overall output of 1.3 Megawatts. Stadium authorities also expect the stadium to generate a whooping 1.13 Gigawatts of electricity per year.
The amount of electricity being generated in the stadium is equivalent to the power used by 350 local house holds. Not only is the stadium generating its own electricity, but in the process it is also saving 630 ton CO2 emissions from lingering in the atmosphere.
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While researchers and engineers all over the world are busy advocating renewable energies like wind as an answer to reduce the amount of coal emissions, some naturalists believe that wind energy might not be the weapon required to fight coal emissions.
Dan Boone, a naturalist in Maryland, has explained that air pollution would be least effected by adding wind turbines to the gird. This theory seems confusing as we all believe that generating power from wind would not result in any emissions like those in case of coal-fired power plants. But the truth really depends on a system known as the cap-and-trade system. Cap-and-trade system A.K.A Emissions trading is an administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.
Air pollution is already regulated under the system and the system has also shown some advantages and the system has proved itself worthy by effectively reducing NOx which create ozone and sulfur dioxide (SO2) the gas mainly responsible for acid rain. Even CO2 emissions have been reduced by 19% from 1995 to 2003 in Pennsylvania.
We all believe that if we erect thousands of grids that could promise steady electricity generation, we could reduce coal emissions even more. But considering the Cap-and-trade system on its feeble side, the system relies on an established total cap on emissions. If a plant reduces its emission below the mentioned cap then the incentive for the plant is that it can sell that extra to another plant to allow it to pollute more, hence the net effect on the pollution will be a big zero.
Moreover, it’s unlikely that the cap will be lowered because of wind energy. The energy generated by wind is not sufficient to power the entire world. The Department Of Energy hopes that by 2030 the total electricity contributed by wind in the United States will be just 0.89% of the amount required and the rest will still be generated by conventional means.
For now we don’t see much reduction in the emissions till the time wind energy generation systems undergo a major revolution.
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The Niger Delta holds some of the world’s richest oil deposits, yet Nigerians living there are poorer than ever, violence is rampant, and the land and water are fouled.
The oil game
The problem in a nutshell is that after 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with the communities. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies—water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish and the rest in tatters. I guess handing out cash to chiefs wasn’t effective at all.
Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta sits atop one of Africa’s richest energy deposits but has electricity only when one of its young men paddles a canoe to the nearest city to buy fuel for a generator. With unemployment rampant, they dream of jobs with the oil companies, whose grounds are bustling and bright with floodlights.
Poverty and corruption fuel militancy and crime in the delta’s neglected communities, where people living without electricity or clean water feel cheated out of the oil wealth being pumped from their lands.
Nigerian oil meets gunpowder: Militants vow to ‘destroy lives’ and provide the required spark
Nigeria’s federal system and politics are deeply flawed, contributing to rising violence that threatens to destabilize one of Africa’s leading countries. The economic disparity in the Delta could also prove damning to Nigeria’s upcoming presidential elections in April as well and jeopardize the democratic process at large.
Thousands of foreign oil workers have left the delta in the past year as attacks and kidnappings have multiplied. Nigeria produced 2.6 million barrels of oil a day in 2005 and exported 2.3 million; unrest between haves and have-nots thus has geopolitical and economic reverberations around the world.
Turning curse into a blessing
The delta people must be allowed to join in the lucrative sale of crude oil; only in this way can the cataclysm that is building up in the delta be avoided. It is clear that strong leadership is central to the solution of corruption and other social pathologies in Nigeria. Keeping in mind the present scenario, the Nigerian government seems to be both deaf and blind to the situation, and the anticipation is that this isn’t going to get better. One of the militant groups, MEND – “Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta”, demands of the Nigerian government for a more equitable distribution of revenue from oil production to the residents of the Delta, the oil capital of Africa’s largest oil producer, where many live on less than one dollar a day.
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X sports mass adrenalin appeal is sure to get the masses hooked onto definite environmental concerns with the efforts of Frank Scura. Extreme sports have become a reaaal hit with 140,000 people having seen X sports on Espn this August.
So there is a lot that x sports heroes can do for environmental causes. Frank Scura has been abel to mobalise the entire lot through his bay area based Action Sports Environmental Coalition.
He seems to have given a completely new direction to the sports by encouraging the members to use equipments made by environmentally savy companies . He also urges his mates to take on green Sponsers for their own sports even though they may loose out on big sums.
Cara-Beth Burnside(gold winner X games) , says
“We can be involved with conscious sponsors, but stay fully in the mainstream.”
His big plans include solar-power and recycling programsand organic clothing lines. Frank says;
“By next year, we will have saved millions of pounds of greenhouse gases, pesticide runoff, water pollution from dyes, and air pollution.”
He seems to have hit the nail on the head by trying to stop the degradation with every dollar that is spent.
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Mountain boards are much bigger and heavier than skateboards. They are a cross between snowboarding and skateboarding. The sport is of recent origin and is also called dirt boarding, or all-terrain-boarding. It started developing as a substitute for snowboarding during the summer months .And though it’s called mountain boarding you don’t quite require a mountain to take part in it. You can practice riding it on just about any surface with an incline.
The boards are a combination of a wooden core with a synthetic crust. Riders stick their feet in open-ended bindings, through which the feet can slip out of in the event of any danger or while performing tricks. While mountain boarding is like snowboarding, it does not have the benefit of a powdery snow landing rather its fall is on a bed of dirt, gravel and rocks.
The boards are outfitted with four eight- or nine-inch inflatable tires, available in various treads for different terrains. The wheels are put on to the board, inclusive of springs for additional steadiness. Mountain boarders wear helmets and further protect themselves with hard plastic padding on their knees and elbows. Sue Way, children’s director for the Aspen Skiing Company in Colorado, said that,
“People need to recognize it’s not a reckless activity,”, “You can control what’s happening out there and be at one with the mountain.”
It is difficult to agree with her considering that mountain boarding remains on the fringe of the extreme sports scene. The next event as put up by the All Terrain Boarding Association is to be held on the 12/13th at Brecon, Powys.
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Science Daily — A gene mutation that appears to be responsible for changing relatively mild forms of the West Nile virus into a highly virulent and deadly disease in American crows has been identified by a team of scientists led by a researcher at the University of California, Davis.
Researcher Becky Walther blows on feathers to inspect the skin underneath a crow suspected of having died from West Nile disease. (Credit: UC Davis photo)
Because it is highly susceptible to West Nile virus, the American crow has served as the major sentinel species, playing an important role in alerting scientists and health professionals to the movement of the disease across North America.
"The findings from this study highlight the potential for viruses like West Nile to rapidly adapt to changing environments when introduced to new geographic regions," said Aaron C. Brault, a virologist at the Center for Vectorborne Diseases in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
"The study also suggests that the genetic mutations that create such adaptive changes may result in viral strains that have unexpected symptoms and patterns of transmission," Brault said.
About West Nile virus
West Nile virus, which is passed back and forth between birds and mosquitoes and transmitted to humans via mosquito bites, was first identified in 1937 in Uganda. Although it was recognized as a cause of severe encephalitis and meningitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, respectively) during a 1957 outbreak in Israel, it has been primarily associated with mild infections accompanied by fevers in humans in Africa and the Middle East.
In 1996, West Nile virus caused an outbreak of encephalitis in Romania, moving on to cause similar outbreaks throughout the next several years in Israel, Tunisia and Russia.
In 1999, the virus was first recognized in North America and has since been reported in humans, birds, horses and mosquitoes in Canada and in all of the contiguous U.S. states. It has become the leading cause of encephalitis from a virus transmitted by arthropods, a group of invertebrates that includes insects, spiders and ticks.
West Nile in birds
A variety of North American bird species, including ring-billed gulls, house finches, crows and black-billed magpies, are extremely susceptible to West Nile virus. In fact, a hallmark of the West Nile virus in North America has been how deadly the virus has been among wild and captive birds. Particularly vulnerable to West Nile virus is the American crow, which is common in urban and suburban areas as well as in all natural habitats except the Southwestern deserts.
Because the American crow is so common and so highly susceptible to West Nile virus, it has served as the sentinel species in North America. Epidemiological studies have found that deaths of American crows due to West Nile virus are associated with higher rates of infection among mosquito populations and clusters of the disease in humans.Although scientists and health professionals have thoroughly described how West Nile virus spreads through both human and animal populations in North America, it has been unclear just how the virus emerged to cause such serious disease in birds, particularly the American crow.
Pinpointing the gene mutation site
To identify how West Nile virus developed into such a deadly disease for birds, the research team looked to the genetic makeup of the virus. West Nile virus is an RNA virus -- its genetic material being composed of RNA, rather than DNA. Although RNA and DNA molecules differ somewhat in structure and function, both play key roles in enabling cells to build the proteins necessary for reproducing and carry out the cells' functions.
The researchers analyzed the evolutionary relationships of the West Nile virus genomes, or entire collections of genes, for 21 different strains of West Nile viruses that had been sampled globally in recent years, including strains from North America. Analysis of genetic patterns indicated a disproportionate rate of change at a particular amino acid within one of the viral genes.
Onto this genome "tree" for the various strains of West Nile virus, they mapped the mutational changes in the same gene region mentioned above. They found that the same amino acid change had occurred three different times and that the resulting virus had been associated with human disease outbreaks.
In order to determine if this mutation was associated with the increased virulence of the West Nile virus in birds and its subsequent ability to spread to humans, the researchers introduced the mutation independently into the low-virulence virus. They also removed that mutation from the highly virulent North American strain.
At that location, the researchers made changes in the amino acids, which they suspected might change a relatively mild West Nile virus strain from Kenya into a much more virulent strain and, conversely, could weaken the more potent New York strain.
Then they inoculated American crows with either a parent virus or one of the newly created recombinant viruses in order to observe the viruses' activity.
As expected, they found that the parent virus from the relatively mild Kenya strain did not become detectable in the crows' bloodstream until two to three days after the birds were infected. However, the new recombinant form of that viral strain quickly became detectable in the crows' bloodstream, and by the third day was present at 10,000 times the concentration of the parent virus from which it was developed, killing nearly all.
The researchers then made the reciprocal amino acid change in the parent virus of the virulent New York strain of West Nile virus, drastically reducing its deadliness in crows. This weakened New York strain was comparable to the relatively mild parent virus from Kenya in terms of detectable levels in the bloodstream and its deadliness among the inoculated crows.
"It appears that the naturally occurring changes in the amino acids at this particular gene site have played an important role in increasing the virulence of West Nile virus in birds before it appeared in North America," Brault said. "Furthermore, these data indicate how much West Nile virus relies on replicating to high levels in birds for efficient transmission of the virus, potentially leading to human disease outbreaks."
The results of the study were reported in the August 12 online issue of the journal Nature Genetics.
Funding for the study was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Pacific Southwest Regional Center for Excellence.