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Apollo News Snipets – May 2012
- 2011 was a good year for wind power with global power generation capacity reaching 238,000 megawatts (MW) according to the Global Wind Energy Council. During 2011, wind energy power generation capacity increased 21% with 41,000 MW of capacity added globally. The 21% increase was significant when compared to the 6% increase in global power generation capacity from all sources. Currently, there are 75 countries with wind farms and 22 of them can generate more than 1 MW from this renewable energy source. China leads the world with 62,000 MW of wind capacity. The United States added 6,800 MW of wind capacity for a total of 46,919 MW.
- For web developers out there, Google has created a new site dedicated to customization tools for Google Maps’ APIs. The Google team has support for location-based and mobile apps as well as tools to visualize geospatial datasets in 2D and 3D. When you check out the site, you may also notice that this is not a free service for businesses who plan to profit off the APIs they create – it is free to use however if you plan to make your website publicly accessible. They also feature a huge gallery with APIs others have created –ranging from fun to educational to political – you can check them out here.
- It’s not often that I run across a web-deployed map that inspires me to email friends and family about it, but this is not your average map. It was created as an art project and displays near-real time wind speeds across the United States as reported by the National Digital Forecast Database. The folks at Hint.fm have done an excellent job visualizing wind speeds in both an intuitive and artistic fashion. You can check out the map here.
- Are you interested in population dynamics and migration patterns here in the United States? If so, the recently released US Census dataset on county migration flows is a must have. Covering the period from 2005 to 2009, this massive dataset contains county inflow and outflow information for all US geographies, even those less than 20,000 in population. The data is offered in both XLS and TXT format and can be downloaded here.
Brock Adam McCarty
Map Wizard
(720) 470-7988
brock@apollomapping.com
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