|
Apollo News Snipets – March 2012
- Last month we turned our focus to the solar industry and the technological strides they completed in the recent weeks, and this month we turn our attention to the wind industry. (1) One complaint against wind energy is the negative impact turbines have on the aesthetics of a landscape. A solution to this issue could be turbines floating hundreds of miles off the coasts in deep ocean waters. This would not only address the aesthetics question as the deep oceans are home to the strongest and most reliable winds on the planet – so this solution is a win-win. Vestas, Siemens and Mitsubishi are some of the major players that are working to innovative this emerging source of renewable energy. (2) Researchers at Japan’s Kyushu University have developed a wind turbine that focuses wind to a set of centrally-located rotating blades. As the blades of the ‘wind lens’ spin, they create additional pull which further accelerates the air that is focused into the circular turbine. The Japanese researchers believe the design could triple power output versus traditional wind turbines. (3) Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a polyurethane material reinforced with carbon nanotubes. This material is up to 60 times stronger and much lighter than the current materials used for wind turbines. Lighter and stronger materials will allow for larger turbine blades as well as more efficient power creation.
- Users of Google Earth (GE) might notice that the patchwork of aerial and satellite imagery that characterized this application for some many years is, well, not so patchy anymore. Last month, Google applied a new smoothing kernel to the imagery in GE with some impressive results – check out the previews of Sri Lanka before and after below. While the new ‘kernel’ is rather impressive in most cases, my feeling is that it brings out too much green in the imagery. What Google calls a smoothing kernel is really just a histogram match that remote sensing professionals apply to imagery when mosaicking data from different dates. I wonder what took Google so long to figure out that they could apply this well known technique to their own massive library of imagery?
Google’s new ‘smoothing kernel’ is rather impressive, here are before and after previews of Sri Lanka as
seen in Google Earth. (Image Source: Google)
- The amount of private (and public) investment in renewable energy in Germany, simply put, is impressive. Citizens and farms own 51% of all the renewable energy production capabilities in one of Europe’s most environmentally progressive countries. Germany already produces 20% of its energy from renewable sources where the United States only produces less than 10% of its need from renewable sources. Another stark contrast between the two countries: Germany can produce approximately 17 gigawatts (GW) of solar power versus 3.6 GW in the US. While these figures show Americans how far we have to go with regards to the transition away from non-sustainable energy sources, it should also give us hope given the size of our country and the amount of sun we are blessed with in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions.
- I’ve seen Adopt-a-Highway and Adopt-a-Stream programs for years, well here is a new one to the category: in Boston you can now Adopt-a-Hydrant. The program has an online mapping API that lets users register, pick and then name a hydrant. In exchange for naming the hydrant, you are responsible for shoveling it out after a snow storm. What a novel crowd-sourcing approach to city maintenance and emergency preparedness!
- It seems that even with falling natural gas prices that have recently reached more than 10-year lows, interest in drilling the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays has not declined. Natural gas production during the second half of 2011 more than doubled in Pennsylvania from 256 billion cubic feet (bcf) during the same period in 2010 to 607 bcf. Of the top five wells in southwestern Pennsylvania, all were located in Greene County with four operated by EQT Corporation and one by Alpha Shale Resources (their only currently active well).
Brock Adam McCarty
Map Wizard
(720) 470-7988
brock@apollomapping.com
|
|
