Winning decoration for an electrical cabinet

October 12, 2010

From: http://www.byggvarlden.se/nyheter/byggprojekt/article2487490.ece

Grey is boring, thinks Fortum. Graffiti is not much better.

Therefore the Energy company organized a competition for the best decorated electrical cabinet on the street. In early October Fortum announced the winners of the “Electrical cabinet” compettion. More than 1200 contributions poured in. 180,000 people voted.

The background to the competition is that the energy company spends close to 10 million kronor every year just to get rid of graffiti.
“Now we’ll test it to see if the graffiti will diminish when thee cabinets are finer ” says Professor Molinder, adding that the contest was conducted in cooperation with the City of Stockholm.

 

Spännande tävling avgjord

Winning entry. "Stockholmskollaget" by Stefanie Hansson, Joanna Fransson, Anna Blomberg: Image Fortum

 

 

Spännande tävling avgjord

Peoples favourite:"Adress: St Eriksg 6b." by Kerstin Rikardson: image Fortum

 

 

Spännande tävling avgjord

Honourable mention."On the Inside"Samuel Nilsson: image Fortum

 

h/t http://www.nyteknik.se/popular_teknik/smatt_gott/article2487546.ece

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A mix of prudence and optimism: Swedish GDP forecast up to 4.8%

October 12, 2010

The Swedish moderate/centre/ right coalition government presents its autumn budget proposal today. The previously expected growth of 4.5% has been revised upwards to 4.8%. But a strong level of prudence is still included with GDP assumed to be 3.7% next year instead of 4.0%. Though the coalition government is only just in a minority the budget is expected to pass in parliament. The main focus is on unemployment and job creation with the objective to reduce unemployment from the current 8.4% to 8.0% next year.

Sweden sticks out in Europe with its relatively high export-led growth.

Free translation from SvT:

http://svt.se/2.22620/1.2188350/regeringen_andrar_prognos

Unemployment as a share of the workforce aged 15-74 years will be 8.4 % this year and fall to 8.0% next year. Unemployment will continue to fall gradually to 6.0% in 2014.
Consumer price index is expected to grow by 1.2 % this year and by 1.5 % next
year. “The government’s main goal is to bring Sweden back to full employment. We will therefore continue to work to strengthen employment and reduce exclusion, “said Finance Minister Anders Borg (M) according to a press release.
“But Sweden is still at a low activity level with high unemployment. And there are still risks that the development could be worse than expected. It is therefore important that we ensure that public finances are in surplus and that we prevent unemployment from remaining stuck at a high level. We must make use of the coming years of high growth to include those who have had difficulty to enter the labour market” said Finance Minister Anders Borg.

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IPCC Meeting opens in Busan. Pachauri to go?

October 11, 2010

It is time for Pachauri to call it a day. Even though the Indian Government is forced to support the discredited Chairman, the recommendation that the Chairman not serve more than one term will probably be followed.

(400 delegates! And the UN meeting has just been held in Beijing. Cancun in November. A gravy train, hot air and not just a few ounces of carbon dioxide!!)

KBS World reports that

The 32nd general assembly of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) opened in Busan today.
Attending the four-day meeting are IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, the heads of the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program, and some 400 other delegates from 194 countries. The participants will discuss 14 issues, including the publication of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report that will be announced in 2014.

The Times of India believes the Busan meet will decide Pachauri’s fate as IPCC head.

Though the Council had recommended that the “the term of the IPCC Chair should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment”, and Pachauri has already headed one such assessment report, which was released in 2007, the Indian government plans to back the director of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) at the meeting.
But, the Indian representatives at the meeting will ask for immediate implementation of all the other reforms of the committee set up after the Himalayan glacier scandal that had dented the IPCC’s reputation earlier this year.

 

THIRTY-SECOND SESSION OF THE IPCC

Busan, 11-14 October 2010

IPCC-XXXII/Doc. 1

(4.VIII.2010)

Agenda Item: 1

ENGLISH ONLY

 

PROVISIONAL AGENDA

1. OPENING OF THE SESSION

2. APPROVAL OF THE DRAFT REPORT OF THE 31st SESSION

3. IPCC PROGRAMME AND BUDGET FOR 2010-2014

4. THE IPCC 5TH ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR5)

4.1. Scope, content and process for the preparation of the AR5 Synthesis Report

4.2 Progress reports and schedule of AR5 related activities

5. REVIEW OF THE IPCC PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES:

REPORT BY THE INTER ACADEMY COUNCIL

6. ADMISSION OF OBSERVER ORGANIZATIONS

7. RULES OF PROCEDURES FOR THE ELECTION OF THE IPCC BUREAU AND ANY

TASK FORCE BUREAU

8. REPLACEMENT OF MEMBERS OF THE IPCC BUREAU

9. COMMUNCATIONS STRATEGY

10. MATTERS RELATED TO UNFCCC

11. OTHER PROGRESS REPORTS

11.1 Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

11.2 Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance

Climate Change Adaptation

11.3 Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

11.4 Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis

(TGICA)

11.5 Development of new scenarios

11.6 IPCC Scholarship Programme

11.7 Implementation of decisions taken at the 30th Session

11.8 Any other progress reports

12. OTHER BUSINESS

13. TIME AND PLACE OF THE NEXT SESSION

14. CLOSING OF THE SESSION


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New species found in Madagascar!

October 11, 2010

Where are they all coming from?

From Wired Science:

New, Cat-Sized Carnivore Found in Madagascar

An unknown, mongoose-like creature has been discovered in the wetlands of Madagascar. To the satisfaction of anyone who delights in new species discoveries but wishes they were a bit more charismatic, this cat-sized carnivore’s got heft. Biologists photographed the creature while surveying lemurs in 2004. It resembled the brown-tailed mongoose, an inhabitant of Madagascar’s eastern jungles that was first described in 1837 by French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

 

Image: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Salanoia durrelli

 

Further inspection, however, revealed differences between skulls, paws and teeth. The new creature is formally described in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity. Because it was discovered by researchers from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, founded by naturalist and author Gerald Durrell, the new animal has been named Salanoia durrelli, or the Durrell’s vontsira.

That the vontsira would be found on Madagascar is unsurprising. While most new land-dwelling species are small and easily overlooked, tropical jungles contain Earth’s last few unexplored and uninhabited pockets of terrestrial life. Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot with no fewer than 15 unique families of animals.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/durrells-vontsira/#ixzz124iVGNOs

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With a “good” monsoon in the bag Indian GDP should exceed 11%

October 11, 2010

The 4 month monsoon season in India ended on 30th September and total rainfall was 2% over the long term average, about 25% higher than last year and about 5% above the long range forecast made in the spring.

 

Total rainfall 2010 Monsoon: IMD

 

Expectations that a good monsoon could lead to double digit growth are stronger with the IMF now predicting a 9.7% growth rate for the calendar year 2010.

“India’s macroeconomic performance has been vigorous, with industrial production at a two-year high. Leading indicators — the production manufacturing index and measures of business and consumer confidence — continue to point up,” the IMF said.

“Growth is projected at 9.7 per cent in 2010 and 8.4 per cent in 2011, led increasingly by domestic demand. Robust corporate profits and favorable external financing will encourage investment,” it said.

“Recent activity (10 per cent year-over year growth in real GDP at market prices in the second quarter) was driven largely by investment and the contribution from net exports is projected to turn negative in 2011 as the strength in investment further boosts imports,” the IMF said.

But in spite of the IMF’s caveat on net exports turning down, I think the trickle-down effects of a good monsoon may have been under-estimated. Agricultural growth which was low should pick up and domestic demand will ensure the industrial growth continues. For the Fiscal Year 2010/11 (till 31st March 2011) I fully expect that the GDP will grow by just over 11%.

The establishing La Niña probably helped the monsoon somewhat.

A “moderate to strong” La Niña, which appeared in July, was now well estabished according to the WMO, and forecasts showed “rather a strengthening of this La Niña episode for the next four to six months.” La Niña is characterised by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific and has been associated with strong rainfall in Asia and Australia, bitter cold snaps in North America, as well as drought in South America.

 

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Posted in Development, Economy, Geosciences, India, Weather | Comments Off on With a “good” monsoon in the bag Indian GDP should exceed 11%

Indra Dhanush 2010: Sukhoi vs Eurofighter and 10 B$ at stake

October 11, 2010

 

F3, Eurofighter, SU-30MKI

 

In 2006, and for the first time in over forty years the Royal Air Force and the Indian Air Force carried out exercises at bases in northern India, with Tornado F3s, E3-D AWACS and a VC10 making up the bulk of the RAF air presence. The bi-lateral Exercise INDRA DHANUSH (which means rainbow in Hindi), was held at IAF Gwalior and IAF Agra.The IAF platforms included the Sukhoi-30 MKIs, Mirage 2000, MiG-21 ‘Bison’ and MiG-27 aircraft.

 

Indra Dhanush 2007

 

Exercise Indra Danush moved to RAF Waddington in July 2007. On one side was Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoon, whose advanced aerodynamics and intuitive controls and avionics have led to it being rated as the second-best air superiority aircraft in the world. Its supporting cast included 1980s era Tornado F3 air defense variants, and upgraded GR9 Harriers from the Royal Navy. On the other side was India’s SU-30MKI, the most evolved variant of Sukhoi’s outstanding Flanker family, with aerodynamics that allow unique maneuvers, and full thrust vectoring besides.The Eurofighter is smaller, and is generally agreed to have more “shaping” than the SU-30 to reduce its radar profile (though neither aircraft is in the same class as the F-22A Raptor or even the less-stealthy F-35 Lightning II).

(See http://jetwashaviationphotos.com/wwwjetwashaviationphotosindradhanush.aspx)

Now the Indian Air Force and the Royal Air Force “meet” at Exercise Indra Dhanush 2010 from October 20th  at Kalaikunda, West Bengal. The exercise will be held in an AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) environment, with air defence being a major thrust area. Both the Indian and British forces are also expected to use their mid-air refuelling aircraft, like the IL-78 and VC-10 tankers, during the combat manoeuvres.

The exercise comes at a time when the $10.4 billion project to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the IAF is in the final stages of the selection process. Apart from the Eurofighter, the other five contenders in the hotly-contested race for the lucrative MMRCA project are the F/A-18 `Super Hornet’ and F-16 `Falcon’ (both US), Gripen (Swedish), Rafale (French) and MiG-35 (Russian).

A major Indo-UK defence deal has been the `Hawk’ AJT (advanced jet trainer) project. India is going in for another 57 Hawks as a “follow-on” order to the ongoing Rs 8,000 crore (about 1.75 B $) AJT project, finalised in March 2004 with BAE Systems, under which the IAF is already getting 66 Hawks.

The Royal Air force is going to field its Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, AWACS (E-3D) and Air to Air refuellers (VC-10). The IAF will field SU-30 MKI, Mirage 2000’s, Mig 27’s and Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems(AWACS) Aircraft.

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Posted in Aviation, India | 3 Comments »

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise makes its solo flight

October 11, 2010

 

Drop test (Virgin Galactic)

The Enterprise spaceship is released from underneath the Eve carrier plane

 

Virgin Galactic conducted the first piloted gliding flight of its commercial suborbital spaceship, the VSS Enterprise, today, releasing the winged rocket plane from the WhiteKnightTwo mothership at an altitude of 45,000 feet above the Mojave Desert.

With Scaled Composites pilot Pete Siebold and copilot Mike Alsbury at the controls, the futuristic twin-tail spacecraft glided to a touchdown at the Mojave Air and Space Port 11 minutes after its release from WhiteKnightTwo, also known as Eve. The craft was not equipped with a rocket motor for the glide test.

“The VSS Enterprise was a real joy to fly, especially when one considers the fact that the vehicle has been designed not only to be a Mach 3.5 spaceship capable of going into space but also one of the world’s highest altitude gliders,” Siebold said in a Virgin Galactic press release.

Branson said he expects rocket-powered test flights to begin next year, followed by test flights into space “hopefully by the end of next year.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20019149-239.html#ixzz121kUYP79

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11511604

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Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Future Transport, Space, Technology | 1 Comment »

The quiet nuclear renaissance is already under way

October 10, 2010

 

The map shows the commercial nuclear power pla...

Commercial and planned nuclear plants around the world: Wikipedia

 

In spite of political posturing of many kinds,  nuclear power capacity worldwide is steadily increasing  with 58 reactors under construction in 15 countries. Most reactors on order or planned are in Asia, though there are plans for new units in 65 countries. In many countries which already have nuclear plants in operation significant capacity addition is being created by plant upgrading.

Quietly, the nuclear renaissance is already under way and the lead is in Asia.

The 2nd International Conference on Asian Nuclear Prospects 2010 (ANUP 2010) gets under way tomorrow at Mahabalipuram near Chennai, India.

Speaking on the occasion, chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission, and secretary department of atomic energy Srikumar Banerjee said that the major issue facing the sector was waste management.  R.K. Sinha, vice president, Indian Nuclear Society and director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said around six new countries are interested to have atomic power plant and many of them will have one by 2030.

Of the 58 nuclear reactors currently under construction world-wide, 35 are in Asia (23 in China, 6 in Korea, 4 in India and 2 in Japan).

The Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Y.A. Sokolov said that current nuclear expansion remains centred in Asia. Of the twelve constructions started in 2009, ten were in Asia.

In addition to the new plants under construction, numerous power reactors in USA, Belgium, Sweden and Germany, for example, have had their generating capacity increased. In Switzerland, the capacity of its five reactors has been increased by 12.3%. In the USA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved 126 uprates totalling some 5600 MWe since 1977, a few of them “extended uprates” of up to 20%. Spain has had a program to add 810 MWe (11%) to its nuclear capacity through upgrading its nine reactors by up to 13%.  Some 519 MWe of the increase is already in place.  For instance, the Almarez nuclear plant is being boosted by more than 5% at a cost of US$ 50 million. Finland boosted the capacity of the original Olkiluoto plant by 29% to 1700 MWe. This plant started with two 660 MWe Swedish BWRs commissioned in 1978 and 1980. It is now licensed to operate to 2018. The Loviisa plant, with two VVER-440 (PWR) reactors, has been uprated by 90 MWe (10%). Sweden is uprating Forsmark plant by 13% (410 MWe) over 2008-10 at a cost of EUR 225 million, and Oskarshamn-3 by 21% to 1450 MWe at a cost of EUR 180 million.

Commissioner William C. Ostendorff, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the Keynote Address at  the Emerging Issues Policy Forum, Powering the Future 2010 Conference on 4th October in Florida. During his speech he said:

Despite the global financial crisis over the last two years, there still appears to be great interest in nuclear power worldwide. In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its annual nuclear power projections. In these projections, the IAEA estimates that up to 10.4% of global electricity will come from nuclear reactors by the year 2030. This estimate is higher than last year’s estimate, which was up to 9% from nuclear power by 2030. The IAEA also made projections out to the year 2050, which estimated a maximum share of 11.9% from nuclear reactors.

Since the 2008 timeframe, the number of countries interested in the introduction of nuclear power has risen from 43 to about 65. Most of these countries are in Asia and Africa. At the same time, the number of countries planning to phase out their reactors has dropped. For example, you may have read that the German government decided last month to extend the life spans of its nuclear plants while alternative energy sources are developed.

I want to touch on one more subject before I close. I believe that it is important for the public to have trust and confidence in a strong regulator. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) compared nuclear accident risks with those from other energy sources. What caught my attention was the impressive safety record of the nuclear industry compared to other energy sectors.

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Posted in Development, Economy, Energy, Nuclear Power, Technology | 1 Comment »

Evaporation from land increased from 1982 to 1998 and then stopped

October 10, 2010

Interesting paper but the headlines it generates are even more interesting.

A new Letter to  Nature:

Recent decline in the global land evapotranspiration trend due to limited moisture supply

Martin Jung et al, Nature, DOI:10.1038/nature09396

The authors write:

Our results suggest that global annual evapotranspiration increased on average by 7.1 ± 1.0 millimetres per year per decade from 1982 to 1997. After that, coincident with the last major El Niño event in 1998, the global evapotranspiration increase seems to have ceased until 2008. This change was driven primarily by moisture limitation in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Africa and Australia.

But the New Scientist in its wisdom reports this under the headline:

Water cycle goes bust as the world gets warmer

That evapotranspiration should decrease if the moisture is not there in the first place seems perfectly reasonable.  That we will have to use technology to get ground water levels back up as water usage increases is also fairly obvious.

It occurs to me that global temperatures have been stable if not declining over the last decade which also fits the period when they measured the stable evapotranspiration.

I note – in passing – that evaporation from ocean surfaces is some 7 times greater than the evaporation from land surfaces while precipitation over the oceans is about 4 times greater than that over land.

But the NS headline is a little bizarre.


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Prof. Hal Lewis resigns from the American Physical Society

October 10, 2010

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety, Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Ethics, Physics, Science | 2 Comments »

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