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How sun, salt and glass could help solve our energy needs
High in the stark Nevada desert, a couple of hundred miles north-west of Las Vegas, is the shimmering circular mirage of Crescent Dunes. Ten thousand silvery glass panes, each measuring 115 square metres, surround a tall central tower, which stands like a twinkling needle in the featureless landscape around it. Resembling a fabulous alien metropolis, Crescent Dunes is in fact a highly sophisticated, mile-and-a-half-wide solar power plant – “the next generation in solar energy”, according to Kevin Smith, one of the project’s founders.
The glass panes, which comprise a combined area of more than a million square metres, are not photovoltaic (PV) panels like those installed on rooftops and in solar farms worldwide. Instead, they are simply vast, multifaceted mirrors, which track the course of the sun like heliotropic plants. This field of mirrors harnesses and concentrates the blazing Nevada sunshine, directing it precisely towards the top of the central tower.
Continue reading...The eco guide to clean beauty
It’s the next big thing in cosmetics, but to be more than a fad it must be sustainable
An umbrella term meaning organic, natural, non-toxic/safe and ethical, “clean beauty” is the next thing in the beauty industry. Sales of clean products seem to be outperforming conventional brands, many of which use unsustainable petro- chemicals. Cleancult.co recently held the UK’s first clean beauty show.
This interest has led to a rush by giant beauty industry players to reformulate to “cleaner” ingredients. If that means phasing out microbeads and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs, which are linked to altered reproductive function and abnormal growth and neural development in children), great. But should these be our only focus?
Continue reading...From solar boom to bill shock: Australians face loss of rooftop payments
About 275,000 people across the country will have their solar energy payments reduced by up to 80% over the next six months
Jonathan Shaw got solar panels installed on the roof of his home in Sydney in 2011 and ever since has been riding something of a gravy train.
He has been getting 60c for every kWh he sells back to the grid. That’s much more than the 25c he pays for each kWh he buys from the grid.
Continue reading...Fears grow over danger of flooding around the UK as inquiry is shelved
Experts warn that time is running out to prevent similar devastation caused by last year’s floods as National Flood Resilience Review is delayed
On Boxing Day last year, Colette Jones was warned by neighbours that flood water was pouring across parkland near her house in Bury, Greater Manchester. The river Irwell had burst its banks as torrential rain swept the area. Within an hour, her house and hundreds of others nearby were inundated. Colette and her husband, Graham, had to struggle through water up to chest height to reach safety.
“It was terrifying,” she recalls. “It was also horrible. The water was mixed with sewage. Our house was ruined.”
Continue reading...'Ayahuasca is changing global environmental consciousness'
Interview with US scientist Dennis McKenna on powerful Amazon hallucinogen, plant intelligence and environmental crises
Ayahuasca, as it has come to be known internationally, is a plant medicine that has been used in the Amazon for centuries for healing and spiritual purposes. Renowned for the often extraordinary visions it induces - not to mention the deep vomiting - it is made from an Amazonian vine known to western science as Banisteriopsis caapi and usually at least one other plant.
Over the last 25 years or so ayahuasca has gone global, with many 1000s of people travelling to Peru and other South American countries to drink it, and expert healers - curanderos, shamans, ayahuasqueros, maestros - travelling abroad to hold ceremonies. Many drink ayahuasca because they’re looking for healing, some are just curious, some mistake it for a recreational “drug.”
May had objections to Hinkley Point, says Cable
Mysterious purple orb discovered by marine scientists in California – video
The marine scientists on the Ocean Exploration Trust’s research vessel, E/V Nautilus, find what is likely to be a variant of sea slug 5,000ft below the sea off Santa Barbara, California in a video published online on 25 July. The researchers have sent a sample of the purple orb to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology for DNA analysis
- Video courtesy of Ocean Exploration Trust. See the full video here
New species of Pacific beaked whale confirmed
Researchers confirm that as yet unnamed whale sighted by Japanese fishermen was previously unknown to science
Scientists have confirmed that a mysterious, unnamed species of beaked whale roams the northern Pacific Ocean. Sightings of the creature, which has a bulbous head and a beak like a porpoise, had been reported by Japanese fishermen, who call them karasu or ravens, but it was previously unknown to science. It has yet to be given a formal scientific name.
“Clearly this species is very rare and reminds us how much we have to learn about the ocean and even some of its largest inhabitants,” said Phillip Morin, a research molecular biologist at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). His team revealed the existence of the new species in a paper published in the journal Marine Mammal Science last week.
Continue reading...Foul-smelling corpse flower finally blooms in New York – video
Visitors flock to the New York Botanical Garden on Friday to witness one of the world’s largest and smelliest flowers – Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the corpse flower – bloom. The rare blooming began Thursday afternoon after more than 10 years of growth. The bloom at its peak only lasts about 24 to 36 hours
Continue reading...Scientists fight crab for mysterious purple orb discovered in California deep
- E/V Nautilus team find likely sea slug 5,000ft below sea off Santa Barbara
- Analysis reveals foot and proboscis, making it ‘a gastropod of some kind’
More than 5,000ft below the surface of the ocean, in a canyon off the coast of southern California, the purple, globular creature appeared to glow under the submersible’s lights.
Related: Sea sponge the size of a minivan discovered in ocean depths off Hawaii
Continue reading...South Yorkshire town in tap water alert over high bacteria levels
Thousands of people in Thorne and village of Moorends, near Doncaster, told not to use tap water while utility firm investigates
Thousands of people in a South Yorkshire town have been warned not to use tap water for drinking or cooking after high levels of bacteria were detected.
The former Labour leader Ed Miliband said he was concerned over the situation affecting 3,600 properties in parts of Thorne, near Doncaster, and the neighbouring village of Moorends, which is in his constituency.
Continue reading...Lettuce towers and office block farms - is this the future?
Fruit and veg straight from the field
Hay-on-Wye, Powys Market town enjoys a renaissance of home produce picked the day before with no chilled storage in sight
Joe at the market garden called 100% Hay is always smiley, but this market day morning he’s looking especially chirpy. The sun is shining, customers are queuing, and the full bounty of summer is weighing heavy on his stall.
Laid out beside his year-round staples – potatoes, garlic, onions and chard – are boxes of summer fruit: red and yellow raspberries, deep purple blackcurrants, blush-red strawberries. Out of adjacent boxes spill the season’s first tomatoes and courgettes.
Continue reading...Hinkley Point: EDF's UK boss 'confident' of go ahead
Batteries and software energise renewables
New Yorkers flock to foul flower
The amphibious, fluffy, golden-bellied Rakali
Drop in little terns numbers concerns RSPB
Plastic bag use plummets in England
England's plastic bag usage drops 85% since 5p charge introduced
Number of single-use bags handed out dropped to 500m in first six months since charge, compared with 7bn the previous year
The number of single-use plastic bags used by shoppers in England has plummeted by more than 85% after the introduction of a 5p charge last October, early figures suggest.
More than 7bn bags were handed out by seven main supermarkets in the year before the charge, but this figure plummeted to slightly more than 500m in the first six months after the charge was introduced, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.
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