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Global Warming Nightmare !!
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
The greenhouse effect, a natural process that regulates the temperature of Earth, is a very complex system. As the sun hits the Earth to heat it, some of the heat bounces back up into space. The remainder of the heat becomes trapped in the atmosphere, due to clouds and greenhouse gasses. The Earth's atmosphere has many components. It contains 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and 1% Trace Gasses. In addition, greenhouse gasses, the gasses that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, are water vapor, clouds, and other gasses. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be 60 degrees colder, and not able to support life. There are also man made greenhouse gasses that if exerted in abundance, can harm the Earth. The major man made greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Basically, the greenhouse effect conserves the warm temperature of the Earth. As more and more fossil fuels are being burned, the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are drastically increasing. In addition, methane and nitrogen levels in the atmosphere are rising, due to everyday human activity, such as driving cars. In contrast, completely diminishing greenhouse gasses emissions in the atmosphere is not an option, as natural gas emissions occur naturally and are needed for the greenhouse effect. However, we do need to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere. If we fail to do so, global warming will remain on the rise.
GLOBAL WARMING: THE BIG PICTURE
Global Warming, a topic much discussed, is they theory that the Earth is gradually getting warmer, due to atmospheric changes. As fossil fuels are continuously being burned, carbon dioxide is being emitted into the atmosphere, making the Earth warmer. Too many greenhouse gasses are being released into the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Because the Earth is being made warmer, many things in the environment are beginning to change for the worse.
GLOBAL WARMING: CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
There are many contributing factors to global warming. The top contributor is power stations. Power stations emit carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. 21.3% of annual greenhouses gasses are from power stations. Following power stations is industrial processes, transportation fuels, and agricultural byproducts, which emit methane into the atmosphere, and is 12.5% of the annual greenhouse gasses. Residential, commercial and other sources, land mass and biomass burning and waste disposal and treatment are the last three greatest factors.
GLOBAL WARMING: LOCAL EFFECTS
Global warming isn't a subject to ignore, it is affecting everyone. Over the past century, the average warming was 1.3 ° F. If global warming continues, by 2100, temperatures will have risen by 3 ° F- 7° F. This extreme change will not only cause ocean and air temperatures to rise, but will also cause the melting of snow and ice. This includes the melting of glaciers. For many animals, their home will melt away, and they will become extinct. In comparison, it is predicted that ocean water will expand, and costal parts of Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets will slide into the ocean. Similarly, tropical storms are expected to intensify, as well as producing more powerful peak winds and increased rainfall. Also, there are many unusual things that global warming will affect. Over the next 40 years, the hotter temperatures will cause a 20% drop in California's almond and walnut crops. In addition, the amount of baseball bats will be lesser. The ash tree, which baseball bats are made from, is in danger of disappearing. If we don't take action now and we keep emitting too many greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, there will be serious trouble for the next generations.
WHAT YOU CAN DO DIFFERENTLY
Now the question is…what can we do to put a stop to global warming? There are many things you can easily do in your daily life to help stop global warming. Saving energy is a very important factor in stopping global warming. When you leave lights on, energy is being used up. Many times, lights are left on when people aren't in the room. Not only will turning off lights what only save the environment, but it will also save you money. In comparison, look for bulbs that are Energy Star qualified. As the name says, Energy Star appliances use about 75% less energy than regular appliances, therefore reducing the greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere. There are more than 50 different categories in Energy Star products. Similarly, green power, an electricity source that is environmentally friendly, is generated from wind and the sun. The average home's annual energy bill is $1,248/year. The home equipped with Energy Star annual energy bill is $888/year. This drastic cost decrease of $400/year (31%) is not only great for you, but is also imperative for the well-being of the environment. If every business and household installed Energy Star products in their own home, over the next 15 years, the decrease of carbon dioxide would be equivalent to 17 million cars of the road for each of those 15 years! Likewise, if this happened, the entire country would save $100 billion in energy bills. In 1997 alone, Energy Star products saved 15 million tons of carbon dioxide from emitting into the atmosphere.
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH
Global Warming will do a vast amount of harm to the Earth if we don't take action now and put a stop to it. By doing this, we will be decreasing the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere. Power stations are the greatest amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. They emit greenhouse gasses by burning fossil fuels. Global warming is and will effect precipitation and sea level changes in the future. But, there are many things that everyone can do to stop global warming, such as buying Energy Star certified appliances and turning off lights.
Green energy to slash power use of computers
Many experts are looking to slash soaring energy use by ever more powerful computers, data centres and mobile devices.
University of Washington researchers have created a system, called EnerJ, that reduces energy consumption in simulations by up to 50 percent, and potentially by as much as 90 percent.
'We all know that energy consumption is a big problem,' said Luis Ceze, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, who led the study.
'With our system, mobile phone users would notice either a smaller phone, or a longer battery life, or both. Computing centres would notice a lower energy bill.'
The basic idea is to take advantage of processes that can survive tiny errors that happen when, say, voltage is decreased or correctness checks are relaxed, according to a Washington statement.
Some examples of possible applications are streaming audio and video, games and real-time image recognition for augmented-reality applications on mobile devices.
'Image recognition already needs to be tolerant of little problems, like a speck of dust on the screen,' said co-author Adrian Sampson, doctoral student and Ceze's colleague.
Some experts believe we are approaching a limit on the number of transistors that can run on a single microchip.
The team's approach would work like a dimmer switch, letting some transistors run at a lower voltage.
Other ways to use hardware to save energy are lowering the refresh rate and reducing voltage of the memory chip. Simulations of such hardware show that running EnerJ would cut energy by about 20 to 25 percent, on the average.
For one programme, the energy saved was almost 50 percent. Combining the software and hardware methods, researchers believe, could cut power use by about 90 percent.
These findings will be presented next week in San Jose at the Programming Language Design and Implementation annual meeting.
Source: IANSGoing green on a lean budget
Fuel prices have skyrocketed in the past few weeks.
To make things worse comes the further talk of increasing the price of diesel at fuel pumps. In such times, one should look at fuel-efficient options which use alternative fuels like Compressed Natural gas (CNG) and Electric Hybrid cars.
CNG costs Rs 29 per kilogram, and is mainly used to run commercial vehicles in Delhi.
Maruti has specially designed and modified nine different vehicles starting from the Eeco van, Alto, Wagon R, Estilo, SX4 etc. to run on CNG using advanced twin computer technology.
The new generation of CNG cars will definitely offer you better performance compared to their older counterparts where you had to start pushing the accelerator a day before you actually started driving. The new cars come with integrated cylinders and piping as well as computers which monitor engine performance. Says I. V.
Rao of Maruti, "Today's generation of specially designed CNG vehicles give you almost the same performance as their petrol powered counterparts at half the cost." Maruti is not the only vehicle manufacturer with CNG vehicles.
Many others have jumped on to the CNG bandwagon as well. Toyota offers an excellent Innova and Corolla Altis in CNG.
General Motors India has an Aveo model in CNG on offer. At the launch of the Aveo CNG, Managing Director of General Motors in India, Karl Slym said, "Its (Aveo CNG's) running cost is approximately 54 per cent lower than a similar vehicle powered by petrol and 25 per cent lower than a similar vehicle powered by diesel."
He added: "Because of the lower operating economics and the growing number of CNG stations being built across India, this offering is expected to appeal to both individual and fleet customers."
CNG is a clean and green fuel which is quite light on your pocket. If you desire to go the unconventional way (and have the moolah for it) you can of course opt for a hybrid car.
A hybrid, as the name implies, is a vehicle that uses two sources of power — a conventional petrol or diesel engine and an electric motor.
Honda was the first company in India to make a hybrid version of the Civic available, though it did not do very well.
Toyota has not fared much better either with its globally popular Prius — thanks to the huge import duties imposed on all such cars by the government.
One hybrid vehicle which has done surprisingly well in India is the Porsche Cayenne SUV.
This is simply because it is placed in a segment in which people do not mind spending a little extra.
If you want to be green and are lean on the budget, do opt for a new generation CNG vehicle.
Your running costs will be half of petrol and at least 30 per cent cheaper than with diesel.
The only drawback is the long queues at filling stations and the fact that filling stations are only located in the Delhi and NCR areas.
You would also have to pick your way between auto-rickshaws and taxis— but with the savings you make at the end of the day will make it worthwhile for you.
And if you have the money — go for a Hybrid.
Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2011. MTNPL. All rights reserved.
Biology helps to optimise wind farms
Evolutionary algorithms are being used to work out the best placement of wind turbines to maximise their energy output.
Computer scientist, Dr Frank Neumann from the University of Adelaide is carrying out the research using supercomputers at the Max-Planck Institute.
"We are looking at how can we can optimise the placement of the turbines on the wind farm," says Neumann.
He says that turbines on a wind farm can block the flow of wind to other turbines, depending on where they are placed.
So-called "wake effects" can significantly reduce the amount of energy generated by the wind farm and there needs to be trade-off between saving space and reducing wake effects.
Neumann and colleagues have developed computer algorithms that can minimise these effects and maximise the energy generated, given a particular terrain, turbine type, wind direction and area of land.
They are called "evolutionary algorithms" because they are inspired by biological evolution, says Neumann.
The process begins with a particular set of turbine layouts, which can be thought of as "parent" solutions to the problem. Each parent is the basis of a new set of layouts each with different characteristics, which can be thought of as "offspring" solutions.
The idea is to replicate what happens in evolution where each generation is supposed to improve on the one before.
"In the end you pick the best solution from your set," says Neumann.
He says using his algorithms it's possible to increase the energy output of a wind farm by four to five per cent.
"On the profit side this would go into hundreds of millions [of dollars] over one year for a large wind farm," says Neumann.
Supercomputer power
Neumann says it takes an enormous amount of computer power to evaluate the interaction between all the different turbines in different scenarios.
He says other approaches to optimising layout of wind farms can only deal with a small number of turbines, but his algorithm can model up to 1000.
Neumann says to keep computation time down to a week, a supercomputer is required to evaluate all the solutions in parallel.
"It could take a year on a normal computer," he says.
Neumann says other biology-inspired algorithms being used to inspire solutions to complex problems are based on ant colonies.
Ants are very good at finding the shortest way to a food source from their nest by communicating with each other and using pheromone trails, he says.
Neuman is using the same principles to develop algorithms that can, for example, solve the shortest return route that takes in several cities.
Source: Anna Salleh
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