World's biggest hurricane simulator aims to improve forecasts
Miami (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
The world's largest hurricane simulator is now complete and experts hope it will improve forecasters' ability to predict how strong a storm will get, which has been a key weak spot for science until now.
The $15 million wind and wave machine at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science resembles a giant aquarium tank, without the fish.
When lead scienti ...
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One killed, 30 hurt as 'tornado' hits north Germany
Berlin (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
One man was killed and more than 30 people injured when a tornado and violent storms hit northern Germany, ripping tiles off roofs, downing trees and overturning cars, emergency services said Wednesday.
Worst hit was the town of Buetzow near the northern port of Rostock, where bricks lay scattered in the streets after flying debris had badly injured one person and hurt dozens of others late ...
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More than 200,000 road deaths a year in China: WHO
Beijing (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
More than 200,000 people are killed on China's notoriously dangerous roads every year, the World Health Organisation said Wednesday - at least four times official government statistics.
Writing in the government-published China Daily newspaper, the WHO's representative in the country Bernhard Schwartlaender said the estimated deaths were "entirely preventable".
"In China, over 10,000 ch ...
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A century on, Lebanon rediscovers deadly famine
Beirut (AFP) May 5, 2015 -
Lebanon is rediscovering a century-old tragedy that most had forgotten - a devastating famine, caused by blockades and a locust infestation, that killed a third of its population.
From 1915 to 1918, in the midst of World War I and before modern-day Lebanon existed, between 150,000 and 200,000 people died of malnutrition and disease, according to estimates by historians.
Those who surviv ...
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Quake-hit Nepal villagers take aid into their own hands
Barpak, Nepal (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
Even as they mourn their dead, the quake-hit villagers of Barpak high in the Nepal Himalayas must make a difficult and dangerous hours-long trek into the valley for tents and supplies.
More than a week after a deadly earthquake flattened their village, many survivors in this small mountain community still lack adequate shelter from the cold and rain.
Although the army has begun airliftin ...
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Nepal tragedy takes toll even on cremation overseers
Kathmandu (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
As veteran cremation worker Khadga Adhikari placed a handful of uncooked rice and a coin on the chest of yet another young victim of Nepal's earthquake, his own heart was filled with sadness.
"I don't remember much about most people I cremate," said Adhikari, who has spent 30 years preparing funeral pyres. "But when you are handling the body of a child, it hurts deeply. It's not their time t ...
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NASA Aids Response to Nepal Quake
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 05, 2015 -
NASA and its partners are gathering the best available science and information on the April 25, 2015, magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal, referred to as the Gorkha earthquake, to assist in relief and humanitarian operations. Organizations using these NASA data products and analyses include the U.S. Geological Survey, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Office of U.S. Foreig ...
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MOU between ISRO Department of Land Resources to beef up EO capacity
New Delhi, India (SPX) May 05, 2015 -
A function for signing the MOU between Department of Land Resources and NRSC for developing the Bhuvan Geoportal - Srishti and the mobile application Drishti was organized on 29.4.2015 in presence of Shri Birender Singh, Hon'ble Minister of Rural Development, in the Krishi Bhavan New Delhi.
The MOU was signed by Dr. Sandeep Dave, Joint Secretary, Department of Land Resources and Dr. V K Da ...
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Did dinosaur-killing asteroid trigger largest lava flows on Earth?
Berkeley CA (SPX) May 05, 2015 -
The asteroid that slammed into the ocean off Mexico 66 million years ago and killed off the dinosaurs probably rang the Earth like a bell, triggering volcanic eruptions around the globe that may have contributed to the devastation, according to a team of University of California, Berkeley, geophysicists.
Specifically, the researchers argue that the impact likely triggered most of the immen ...
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Chicxulub and the deccan eruptions: Just a coincidence?
Boulder CO (SPX) May 05, 2015 -
In a new paper published online by GSA Bulletin on 30 April, researchers Mark Richards and colleagues address the "uncomfortably close" occurrence of the Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan and the most voluminous phase of the Deccan Traps flood basalt eruptions in India.
Specifically, the researchers argue that the impact likely triggered most of the immense eruptions of lava in India - that ...
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Denmark halts fracking at Total site
Copenhagen (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
Denmark said Wednesday that it had stopped the first exploratory drilling for shale gas in the country a day after it began, accusing French company Total of using an unauthorised chemical.
"They used a product that was not part of those authorised" for the procedure, Ture Falbe-Hansen, a Danish Energy Agency spokesman told AFP.
According to Danish public broadcaster DR, the product know ...
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Crude oil train derails in North Dakota
Heimdal, N.D. (UPI) May 6, 2015 -
Federal regulators said Wednesday a North Dakota town was evacuated after several tank cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire.
Ten responders from the Federal Railroad Administration were dispatched to Heimdal, N.D., to investigate the cause of the incident. The small town of less than 50 residents in central North Dakota was evacuated as a security precaution.
"Today's ...
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Two dead in Mexican oil rig accident
Mexico City (UPI) May 6, 2015 -
In the second such incident in less than a month, a Mexican energy company said two workers died after an accident on an offshore oil rig.
Petroleos Mexicanos, known also as Pemex, said the accident at its Troll Solution field was tied to a leg malfunction on a rig provided by services company Typhoon Offshore. Two workers from an undisclosed company died as a result of the accident and ...
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Rally continues for crude oil market
New York (UPI) May 6, 2015 -
A drop in U.S. crude oil inventories led to another banner day for crude oil markets with crude oil indices gaining at least a full dollar in Wednesday trading.
Crude oil supplies in the United States reported a 1.5 million barrel decline last week, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute.
Oil prices fell dramatically last year as supplies far outweighed demand in ...
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Weak Iraqi oil demand hurts Norway's DNO
Oslo, Norway (UPI) May 6, 2015 -
Though it reached its capacity target at an oil field in the Kurdish north of Iraq, Norwegian energy company DNO said Wednesday it suffered heavy losses.
DNO said it hit a daily production record at the Tawke field of just over 150,000 barrels of oil, adding it had the installed capacity to hit the 200,000 bpd mark.
"Discussions are underway with the [Kurdish] Ministry of Natural ...
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As Iran oil fair opens, foreign companies weigh return
Tehran (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
Iran is expected to outline big oil and gas projects at a major industry event Wednesday ahead of a possible nuclear deal that could allow global energy giants to return.
The plans, which have been trailed in the Iranian media, will likely dominate Iran's 20th Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Fair, a four-day event in Tehran, which opens at 0930 GMT.
Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, who ...
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Iraq's largest oil refinery under threat from IS: US
Washington (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
Iraq's largest oil refinery is under growing threat from Islamic State jihadists, who have advanced inside the perimeter of the facility, the US military said Wednesday.
US warplanes have been carrying out air strikes against the IS group around the Baiji refinery but it was unclear if Iraqi security forces would manage to hold on to the facility north of Baghdad, a Pentagon spokesman said. ...
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New leftist Alberta leader seeks to reassure energy sector
Ottawa (AFP) May 6, 2015 -
The new leftist leader of Canada's oil-rich Alberta province sought to reassure energy investors Wednesday, saying she would work with industry to plan cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and on taxation.
Investors reacted to the New Democratic Party's historic win Tuesday in Alberta by dumping Canadian oil and gas stocks, fearing the NDP would raise fossil fuel royalties in the province to off ...
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Trina Solar building new factory in Thailand
Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
Trina Solar Limited has set up Trina Solar Science and Technology (Thailand) Ltd., a subsidiary company in Thailand to build a manufacturing facility with 500 MW of module and 700 MW of cell production capacity.
Trina Solar will invest US$160 million in the facility, which is located in Rayong of Thailand. Production is projected to commence in late 2015 or early 2016.
Mr. Zhiguo Zhu ...
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Surging solar demand to trigger record high supply chain profits
London, UK (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
IHS has identified at least 89 countries with solar photovoltaic (PV) end-markets that will show growth in solar installations in 2015, which is forecast to drive a 30 percent increase in demand. IHS forecasts that this demand growth will raise PV module gross profits to $5 billion in 2015, which is more than double the profits garnered in 2014 and a four-year record.
"This year we expect ...
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Bringing high-energy particle detection in from the cold
Washington DC (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
Radiation detectors, which monitor high-energy particles such as those produced by nuclear decay and cosmic radiation, are being used increasingly in medical imaging, petroleum well logging, astronomy and national security.
Conventional semiconductor detectors made from germanium and silicon are standard equipment in nuclear physics, but are less useful in many emerging applications becaus ...
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Attosecond physics: A new gateway to the microcosmos
Munich, Germany (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet (LMU) in Munich physicists at the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics have developed a new laser-light source that will lead to significant advances in research on fundamental physics.
The future of electronics lies in optical control of electron flows. That would enable data processing operations to be performed at frequencies equivalent to the rate of oscill ...
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Inkjet printing process for kesterite solar cells
Berlin, Germany (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
The drop-on-demand inkjet printing is a promising approach allowing patterning of materials with negligible materials waste; hence, significant reduction of raw materials cost can be achieved.
Furthermore, inkjet printing can be easily adapted to a roll-to-roll process, which is suitable for large scale production. From the industrial application perspective, both of these two features of ...
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Ethanol may release more of some pollutants than previously thought
Washington DC (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
Ethanol fuel refineries could be releasing much larger amounts of some ozone-forming compounds into the atmosphere than current assessments suggest, according to a new study that found emissions of these chemicals at a major ethanol fuel refinery are many times higher than government estimates.
New airborne measurements downwind from an ethanol fuel refinery in Decatur, Illinois, show that ...
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Vulnerable grassland birds abandon mating sites near wind turbines
Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 07, 2015 -
Shifting to renewable energy sources has been widely touted as one of the best ways to fight climate change, but even renewable energy can have a downside, as in the case of wind turbines' effects on bird populations.
In a new paper in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, a group of researchers demonstrate the impact that one wind energy development in Kansas has had on Greater Prairie ...
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