An innovative concept for an Antarctic vehicle is unveiled this week at the Royal College of Art’s final year show. Working closely with experts from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), award-winning designer James Moon has come up with a lightweight, compact eco-friendly vehicle for use in one of the Earth’s most extreme environments.

The vehicle, called ‘Ninety Degrees South’, uses novel technology to keep drivers safe, warm and protected from the high levels UV exposure that occur under the Antarctic ozone hole. Designed to fit into the small Twin Otter aircraft that BAS use for working in remote deep field locations, Moon’s two-person vehicle has a combination of tracks and wheels allow it to operate anywhere on the continent over hard ground, snow or ice surfaces. The designer believes the versatility of his concept vehicle has commercial potential.

He says,
“The challenge was to design an environmentally-friendly vehicle specifically for Antarctica that could be used also in other cold regions. I’m particularly interested in overcoming the dangers of travelling across crevassed areas of ice. Unknown terrain limits the speed of any journey over the ice - the faster you can detect crevasses the quicker you can travel. I’m using unmanned pathfinder technology which travels on a GPS controlled route ahead of the main unit. The pathfinder is secured by a 30m umbilical cord, and uses ground-penetrating radar to assess risk. I believe this technology serves as a prototype for future, entirely automated, expeditions in the Antarctic and on other planets.”

David Blake, British Antarctic Survey Head of Technology & Engineering says,
“The large tracked vehicles (Snocats) and snowmobiles we use have been developed over several years and work reliably in the extreme Antarctic environment, supporting our field and base operations. James Moon’s concept is very novel and a vehicle built to his design could enable new areas of activity to be undertaken in Antarctica, including ground based deep field surveys. I am sure that should the vehicle be developed, it could also be used as a personnel carrier in Arctic regions. James’s vehicle is innovative and challenging and I am delighted at his enthusiasm and drive in developing his concept vehicle.”

James Moon’s ‘Ninety Degrees South’ goes on show to the public in the Vehicle Design section of The Show: Two at the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU from 24 June to 3 July (closed 1 July), free admission. Visit www.rca.ac.uk for more details.

Original press release: Concept vehicle unveiled (BAS - British Antarctic Survey)

Summertime arrives officially on June 21 in the northern hemisphere, and with it comes thunderstorms. As a result, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration named the week of June 19-25 National Lightning Safety Awareness Week.

NASA encourages summer swimmers, picnickers and others to keep an eye on the sky and stay safe during outdoor activities. NASA lightning expert Dr. Dennis Boccippio, of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Ala., warns that lightning safety should never be taken lightly. An average of 67 people are killed by lightning each year, and thousands of dollars� worth of property is damaged or destroyed, according to the National Weather Service.

Boccippio and the NASA lightning team study this powerful natural force year-round, using equipment on Earth and in space, to learn how lightning and severe weather interconnect, and to determine new ways to protect lives, homes and property.

NASA researchers at have created lightning maps that show where and how much lightning strikes worldwide. The maps are color coded to indicate concentrations of lightning strikes. Each frame represents average lightning activity on each day of the year. This data, compiled from space-based sensors, show how lightning strikes are not evenly distributed around the world. This data is not only important to meteorologists, but to climatologists, as well. Lightning indicates the location of large storms that release latent heat; the ‘fuel supply,’ that helps drive the Earth’s climate ‘engine.’

The National Weather Service’s regional forecast offices in Alabama have been using NASA’s North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array since November 2001. The data help characterize thunderstorm initiation, identify weakening and strengthening storms by the change in the rate of flashes, and evaluate the trend of the flash rate to improve severe storm detection and lead-time. Understanding lightning could help improve severe storm warning lead-time by up to 50 percent and decrease the false alarm rate for non-tornado producing storms.

NASA’s lightning research is also being applied to aviation safety. NASA technology is helping aviators avoid turbulence over offshore areas, by using surface lightning measurements and combining them with satellite lightning data and other measurements.

“Knowing the precise location of lighting helps with aviation safety, and helps forecasters locate the most intense regions inside thunderstorms,” said Dr. Jeffrey Halverson, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Outreach scientist and meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Original press release: NASA Helps Highlight Lightning Safety Awareness Week (NASA Earth Observatory)

A leaked copy of a document on climate change being drafted for the G8 summit suggests plans have been watered down.

A version of the communique leaked in May treated climate change as a fact and pledged money to energy projects.

In the new version the words “our world is warming” appear in square brackets, meaning at least one country disagrees, and all financial pledges have gone.

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown said the only version that mattered would be agreed next month at the G8 summit.

He told Sky News: “What actually matters is what the final communique actually says and you will not know what that says until the world leaders actually get together.

Original press release: G8 climate plans ‘watered down’ (BBC)

Bangui, Philippines - The opening of Southeast Asia’s first wind farm in the Philippines is a vital step forward in efforts to promote renewable energy in some of the world�s fastest growing economies, according to WWF.

Together with Northwind Power Development Cooperation (NorthWind), WWF-Philippines celebrated the commissioning of the US$44 million, 25MW project, which is now ready to supply electricity to the Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative.

“The future of Southeast Asian wind power starts here,” said Atty Ferdinand Dumlao, chairman of NorthWind. “We see huge potential for this technology in the Philippines and beyond.”

WWF estimates that the Philippines could save US$2.9 billion in avoided fossil-fuel imports over the next ten years if the country’s vast renewable energy resources are tapped. According to an analysis done by WWF’s PowerSwitch! campaign, the wind resource potential could be as much as 7,400MW in the Philippines, enough to power 19 million homes.

This potential is already under development. Later this year, the Philippines National Oil Company will start constructing a 40MW wind farm near to the Northwind site. Smith-Bell RESCO will soon start the construction of a 30MW wind farm in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental. And WWF, in collaboration with private sector partners, is also developing two wind farms in Panay.

A new Philippines Renewable Energy Bill, strongly supported by WWF and Northwind, is expected to be passed by the Filipino government later this year increasing the opportunities for wind power.

“Wind power takes us one crucial step closer to energy independence,” said WWF-Philippines President Lory Tan.

“This, in turn, builds economic strength by stabilizing business costs, insulating us from pollution and the unpredictable prices of imported oil and coal, while preserving foreign exchange for other more critical needs.”

But wind power is not just being developed in the Philippines, but is picking up speed throughout Asia.

South Korea inaugurated its first wind farm in 2005. In February 2005, China passed a Renewable Energy Law to drive the government’s target of 20,000MW of wind power by the year 2020. And as of March 2005, India already has 3,595MW of wind power, making it fifth largest win generator globally.

“Across Asia-Pacific the message is the same; spiralling coal and oil prices and dependency upon imported fuels, combined with health and environmental risks are forcing governments to radically rethink the way they supply their people with energy,” said Liam Salter, WWF International’s Regional Climate and Energy Programme Director.

“Wind and other renewables are central to a new way of thinking; we predict the trend will continue.”

Original press release: Southeast Asia�s first wind farm launched (WWF)

Desertification is a growing menace that puts at risk global efforts to tackle poverty and hunger, a new report from a coalition of scientists states.

The group says bad crop management and the misuse of irrigation in a number of regions is putting unsustainable pressure on dryland areas.

The UN-led team estimates that 10-20% of drylands are already degraded.

They warn that unless practices change these areas will become unproductive, blighting the lives of millions.

Their report is called Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Desertification Synthesis. It is the latest document produced by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) project.

This $22m, four-year study by 1,300 experts from 95 countries has been described as the most detailed “green healthcheck” yet on the state of the planet.

Original press release: World’s dry regions set to expand (BBC)

An international research project has for the first time successfully stored carbon dioxide in European coal beds.

Scientists from CSIRO’s Petroleum Division who were involved in the four year project, say its success could have major implications for Australia, leading to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions associated with electrical power generation.

CSIRO has set up a Flagship Program, Energy Transformed, to develop and implement technologies to halve Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from the energy and transport sectors by 2050.

Flagship Director John Wright says, “The storage of CO2 in unusable coal beds demonstrated in the project is very exciting. Because of the structure of our energy industry, Australia has one of the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the developed world. It is a national imperative to reduce this, particularly from fossil fuel power generation.”

The RECOPOL project (Reduction of CO2 emission by means of CO2 storage in coal seams in the Silesian Coal Basin of Poland) was a research and field demonstration involving numerous research institutes, universities and industrial partners, including CSIRO.

Dr Wright says, “In Australia we need a pilot project to ensure we can deal with CO2 emissions in a responsible manner. Coal is still the cheapest and most effective means of power generation and as such, it will be with us for many years to come. If we can learn to deal with the downside of burning coal, then there will be significant benefits for Australians and the environment.”

Beyond simply storing the CO2 in coal beds that can’t be mined, researchers say they could potentially use the methane naturally occurring in most deep coal beds for power generation.

Dr Luke Connell of CSIRO Petroleum says, “The coal beds of interest with this approach are those unsuitable for mining due to their depth or other characteristics. These coal beds have a great capacity for storing CO2 and it would be possible to use the injected CO2 to displace methane that could be used for power generation. This combination could allow power generation with zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

Australia’s greenhouse gas emission currently sits at around 27 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per person. This compares to 13 tonnes per person in New Zealand, 10 tonnes in Japan and 21 tonnes in the USA.

Dr Connell says, “The international scientific community, governments and industry all have a vested interest in finding viable solutions to a global problem. The RECOPOL project has significantly improved the scientific understanding of coal beds as reservoirs for CO2 and the experience gained through the project will help the development of future projects.”

[The RECOPOL consortium consists of : CSIRO (Australia), TNO-NITG (co-ordinator, the Netherlands), Central Mining Institute (operator of the site, Poland), Aachen University of Technology (Germany), Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), Institut Fran�ais du P�trole (France), DBI-GUT (Germany), Gaz de France (France), Gazonor (France), Air Liquide (France), Advanced Resources international (USA) and the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, JCoal (Japan), Shell International, and the University of Mons (Belgium)].

Original press release: New hope for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia (CSIRO)