China's solution to worldwide energy crisis : solar greenhouses

WASHINGTON: Increased proliferation of efficient solar greenhouses in China may contribute to solving worldwide problems such as the energy crisis and global climate change , according to a new report based on 20 years of systematic studies.

Solar greenhouses have played a vital role in China's agricultural scene for years. New innovations in greenhouse design are allowing growers to produce more varieties of vegetables, even during long winter months.

In the recently published report Chinese scientists called solar greenhouses "the most important type of infrastructures for growing horticultural crops in China."

The team of researchers from the College of Agronomy and Biotechnology at China Agricultural University presented an extensive report on single-slope solar greenhouses in a recent issue of HortTechnology.

Single-slope solar greenhouses are built facing south using support and insulation walls on the north, east, and west sides. A short roof is installed on top of the north wall. The south side is supported by metal or bamboo frames (or a mixture of both materials), and is covered with plastic film and an insulating blanket. These energy-efficient greenhouses use solar energy as the only source of light and heat for winter crop production in the region between latitudes 32°N and 43°N for production of warm season crops such as tomato and cucumber.

As in other parts of the world, the feasibility of using solar greenhouses in China largely depends on the relative duration of sunshine in the winter and temperatures at the greenhouse site. Solar greenhouses are widely used in the regions north of Huai River and the Beijing area, where greenhouses usage has greatly reduced energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions. The success of China's solar greenhouse operations has contributed to the structures' adoption by countries such as Japan, Korea, and Russia.

The researchers noted that while solar greenhouses have many advantages-energy savings, reduced pollution, and improved economic development-the structures also have distinct disadvantages due to their heavy reliance on the sun and weather conditions. Especially during winter, less solar radiation and low temperatures can have a significant negative impact on warm-season vegetable productivity of the greenhouses, and addressing these issues can be challenging.

"Innovation and optimization of the greenhouse structure needs to continue. More work needs to be done on gutter-connected, double-arched, and semi-underground greenhouses. New wall insulation materials need to be developed to reduce the thickness of the wall while improving its insulation efficiency and expanding space utilization, said Zhen-Xian Zhang, lead author of the study.

The study also recommended that breeding new varieties of horticultural crops that can adapt to low light and winter temperatures in solar greenhouses would provide another strategy to ensure sustainable development of the greenhouse industry.

"The solar greenhouse has a very bright future, especially given the amount of concern over the global energy crisis and climate change. Additionally, significant energy savings can be realized from switching to solar greenhouses. We hope this technology can be applied to regions of similar climate to help reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions", Zhang said.

Global warming was 'more common 50m yrs ago

LONDON: Periods of intense global warming lasting tens of thousands of years occurred more frequently in the past than previously believed, according to a new study.

A team, led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said that releases of carbon dioxide sequestered in the deep oceans were the most likely trigger of these ancient 'hyperthermal' events.

The hyperthermals took place roughly every 400,000 years during a warm period of Earth's history that prevailed some 50 million years ago and lasted about 40,000 years before temperatures returned to normal.

The majority of these hyperthermals increased average global temperatures by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

"These hyperthermals seem not to have been rare events. There are lots of ancient examples of global warming on a scale broadly like the expected future warming. We can use these events to examine the impact of global change on marine ecosystems, climate and ocean circulation," said Richard Norris, a Scripps geology professor who co-authored the study.

The strongest of them coincided with an event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the transition between two geologic epochs in which global temperatures rose between 7.2 and 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit and needed 200,000 years to return to historical norms.

The events stopped taking place around 40 million years ago, when the planet entered a cooling phase. No warming events of the magnitude of these hyperthermals have been detected in the geological record since then.

Norris and lead author Phil Sexton, now at the Open University in the UK, analysed 50-million-year-old ocean sediment cores gathered off the South American coast.

In the cores, evidence of the warm periods presented itself in bands of grey sediment layered within otherwise pale greenish mud.

The grey sediment contained increased amounts of clay left after the calcareous shells of microscopic organisms were dissolved on the sea floor.

These clay-rich intervals are consistent with ocean acidification episodes that would have been triggered by large-scale releases of carbon dioxide.

The authors concluded that a release of carbon dioxide from the deep oceans was a more likely cause of the hyperthermals than other triggering events that have been hypothesized.

Norris noted that the hyperthermals provide historical perspective on what Earth will experience as it continues to warm from widespread use of fossil fuels, which has increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere nearly 50 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The study appears in the journal Nature.

New York's most expensive house on sale for $90 mn

LONDON: A luxurious New York townhouse, believed to be the city's most expensive, has gone on sale for a staggering 90 million dollars.

It can also be rented for 210,000 dollars per month.

The 35ft wide mansion in Manhattan's opulent Upper East Side boasts ten bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, three kitchens, a wood-panelled library, an elevator, a gym and a garden, reports the Daily Mail.

If the mansion sells for the asking price it will beat previous New York record holder The Harkness Mansion sold for 53 million dollars in 2006.

The French Gothic mansion on East 80 Street was built in the early 1900s by dime store magnate Frank Winfield Woolworth for his daughter, Helena.

New York townhouse super-broker Paula Del Nunziom from Brown Harris Stevens, who will be attempting the massive sale, reasons the enormous asking price:

"This is the only mansion to be formally available that has been fully renovated in a traditional prewar style," she explained.

Green sludge can protect groundwater from radioactivity

LONDON: Neptunium , a radioactive waste product from uranium reactors , can be captured now. It could pose a serious health risk should it ever seep its way into groundwater -- even five million years after it is deposited in a dump.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have shown the hazardous waste can be captured and contained with the help of a particular kind of green sludge that occurs naturally in oxygen-poor water.

Bo C. Christiansen, geochemist at the University of Copenhagen who specializes in "green rust", explains how it contains neptunium, the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta reports.

"Our study shows that even the safest encapsulation of radioactive waste could be made safer if radioactive waste canisters are buried in a place where green rust will form," explains Christiansen, according to a Copenhagen statement.

For years green rust was perceived as a problem. The substance was investigated primarily by material scientists who wanted to know how to avoid green rust formation in reinforced concrete.

In recent years, however, a group of chemists, physicists and geologists at the Copenhagen University Chemistry department's Nano-Geoscience Research Group have been studying the substance's beneficial properties.

The results have exceeded all expectations. "Neptunium is a relatively exotic problem. Not a lot of people need to safeguard a radioactive waste depot. But green rust appears to be effective against nearly any kind of pollution," says Christiansen.

Vodafone launches Wi-Fi device @ Rs 5,500

PTI, Mar 14, 2011, 02.59pm IST

MUMBAI: Vodafone Essar has announced the launch of its mobile Wi-Fi device, Vodafone R201, in India at the price of Rs 5,500.

Vodafone R201 is a portable mobile Wi-Fi terminal which can be used by five users simultaneously to connect to Vodafone's 3G network.

Source -- Times of India

Social media aiding disaster management

SYDNEY: An Australian academic has praised the increasing use of social media during disasters, saying there had been a "beautiful display of humanity" on Facebook during recent catastrophes.

Communications expert Gwyneth Howell said she had been prompted to research the use of social media following last year's major earthquake in New Zealand's second city Christchurch -- which caused damage but no deaths.

The University of Western Sydney academic could not have known more disasters were to follow -- floods and cyclones in Queensland, bushfires in Western Australia, a deadlier quake in Christchurch and Japan's quake and tsunami.

Howell said that interviews with people who established Facebook sites to help victims of Queensland's devastating floods in January had demonstrated a "sense of real community" existed in the virtual space.

"That was the thing that struck me... this beautiful display of humanity and generosity and a sense of 'I don't know you but I want to be able to help'," she said.

"If that's what Facebook is providing and social media is providing people with in times of terrible anguish, I think it's a fantastic resource."

Howell said part of her ongoing research, which will examine how people use social media such as Facebook and Twitter during a time of crisis, will seek to discover how this medium can be deployed to even greater effect.

She said in the Queensland floods, during which Facebook sites offered news of people's whereabouts, help in reuniting pets with their owners and up-to-date information on flood zones, people used social media as an information source.

"They look at news media on television but they go to places like Facebook," Howell said. Howell added that in the Queensland town of Toowoomba, which was hit with deadly flash floods in which many people were swept away, most people found out about the tragedy when friends changed their status on Facebook.

"That is where people learned about the disaster, they didn't learn it from mainstream media." She said even as the situation in Japan, still reeling from last week's 9.0-magnitude quake and deadlytsunami, was unfolding, Facebook and Twitter were being used to make tribute pages and send messages of goodwill.

"That sense of community, I think, is outstanding, and it's what we need," she said.

Source--- Times of India

Hope and loss in Japan's search for 8,000 missing

Line after line, a list on the wall of city hall reveals the dead. Some are named. Others are identified only by a short description.

Female. About 50. Peanuts in left chest pocket. Large mole. Seiko watch.

Male. 70-80 years old. Wearing an apron that says "Rentacom."

One set catches the eye of Hideki Kano, a man who appears to be in his 30s.

"I think that's my mom!" he says. He rushes out into the snow, headed for a makeshift morgue.

The list in Natori, and others along Japan's northeast coast, will only get longer.

Five days after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, the official death toll is more than 4,300. More than 8,000 people are still missing, and hundreds of national and international rescue teams are looking for them.

In the industrial town of Kamaishi, 70 British firefighters in bright orange uniforms clamber over piles of upturned cars to search a narrow row of pulverized homes. They wear personal radiation detectors amid fears of leaks from damaged nuclear plants far to the south.

One woman's body is found wedged beneath a refrigerator in a two-story home pushed onto its side.

"Today and tomorrow there is still hope that we will find survivors," says Pete Stevenson, head of the British rescue crews. "We'll just keep on carrying out the searches."

Those seeking loved ones have posted hopeful notes in temporary shelters and other public places. They cover the front windows of Natori City Hall, blocking the view inside:

"I'm looking for an old man, 75 years old, please call if you find him."

"Kento Shibayama is in the health center in front of the public gym."

"To Miyuki Nakayama: Everyone in your family is OK! We can't use our mobile phones, so you can't call us, but we're all here. If you can come home, please come! We're praying for you."

City officials have posted a list of 5,000 people staying at shelters. Yu Sato, 28, snapped photos of the names.

"I'll post them on the Internet so people living far away can check," he says.

In Otsuchi town, Reiko Miura conducts her own search.

She's looking for a 50-year-old nephew who couldn't flee the tsunami because of a work injury that had phyiscally disabled him. His mother — Miura's sister — asked her to look for her son.

But for the 68-year-old woman, it is a struggle just to recognize the neighborhood, now a sea of mud punctuated by tossed cars and mounds of debris.

"I'm pretty sure that my family home is here. It was a big house," she says upon reaching a pile of rubble in a location that feels familiar. But there's no sign of her nephew, and she trudges back across the mud, unsure what to tell her sister.

The devastation is of such magnitude that it is hard to imagine some of the communities ever being rebuilt. Town after town has been wiped away.

Each curve in the road opens onto a new scene of destruction — a van balanced precariously on the railing of a Buddhist temple, a handbag inside an overturned washing machine.

Kesen is virtually a ghost town.

Miyuki Kanno, who lives a few miles (kilometers) away, rode his bicycle down a mud- and water-choked section of road looking for information about missing relatives. He guessed it would take 20 years for Kesen to come back.

"Your hometown is your hometown. They'll rebuild. I don't know if the young people will come back, but they'll rebuild," he says.

Farther north in Ofunato, 72-year-old Keiichi Nagai is less sure.

He stands on the edge of a huge wasteland that used to be the low-lying part of the city. He shakes his head and repeats, "There's nothing left, there's nothing left."

He points at a washed-up fishing boat that he said destroyed his house. All he managed to salvage was a small brown wallet with a hospital card.

"There's nothing left of this place," he says. "The population is going to be half what it was. It's scary to live here now. People will think it's dangerous. There's a chance another tsunami will come. I won't live here. Maybe on the hill but not here."

Some 430,000 people are in temporary shelters, too worried about daily survival to think of the future.

Some 350 in the gym and theater of an Ofunato middle school have fashioned beds from cardboard mats and blankets. Elderly residents huddle around gas heaters, and youths kick a soccer ball on a snow-laced baseball field.

Japanese military officers stock vats of water in a parking lot and ferry in bananas, rice balls and miso paste.

In Kesennuma, another coastal city, Kayoko Watabe arrives at a shelter after trudging through mud and thick snow. The 58-year-old woman is wearing the same clothes she had on when the tsunami struck.

She is staying with relatives who lack electricity, heat and water, and she's come to the shelter — a junior high school — to get food and other necessities. There, she finds survivors living in classrooms. Most lie on the floor, wrapped in blankets. The stench of unflushed urinals fills the hallway.

"We've never seen or experienced suffering like this," she says. "All I can think about is where to get food and stay warm."

____

Klug reported from Kesen, Kesennuma and Ofunato, Japan. Associated Press writer David Stringer in Kamaishi, Japan, and AP videojournalist Koji Ueda in Otsuchi, Japan, contributed to this report.