Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Tasmanian timber giant Gunns Ltd has to pay two Greens politicians it wants to sue nearly $70,000 in legal fees, reported The Courier-Mail (10 August 2006 p5). The Victorian Supreme Court on 9 August assessed what Gunns owed Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt following the striking out of writs Continue Reading →
The cost of converting to Autogas varies between $1500 and $3400, depending on the type of vehicle and system used, and it could be even less if the Government goes ahead with its proposed $1000 subsidy, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (10 August 2006 p2). High demand creates supply shortage: Some mechanics have turned customers Continue Reading →
The ACT is experiencing topsy-turvy weather extremes, noted The Canberra Times (9 August 2006, p.5). Tuesday 8 August featured both the Territory’s coldest and warmest temperatures this winter and rewrote the record books.
Brrrrr: The ACT recorded its coldest August morning for seven years on the day as the mercury nose-dived to minus 6 at Canberra airport while Tuggeranong fell to a frost-bitten minus 7.2 degrees. Weather bureau meteorologist Sean Carson said it was the coldest morning since July 2004, and coldest August morning since 1999.
Phew: In stark contrast, the temperature peaked at 17.4 degrees at 5pm, resulting in the warmest day since May 24 this year.
23.4 deg difference "pretty huge": "The difference between the minimum and maximum [in Canberra] was 23.4 degrees which is pretty huge," Mr Carson said. "I know we haven’t had that temperature range in the past year – it’s very extreme for sure."
The Canberra Times, 9/8/2006, p.5
Source: Erisk Net
ACT records its coldest and warmest winter temperatures, both on the same day. Full story
When Spanish sailors landed on the Canary Island of El Hierro in the 15th century they were amazed to find an aboriginal population with extensive agriculture, which they had somehow managed to sustain with virtually no rainfall.
The stuff of legend: According to New Scientist (5 August 2006, p.37) legend has it that the Guanche people derived all their water from a single large tree, which stripped moisture out of passing fogs and dripped enough water from its leaves to support a thousand people.
Fogs and trees made the difference: However true the story may be, there is no doubt that the only thing stopping the Canary Islands from resembling the Sahara desert, just 70 kilometres to the east, is the moisture-rich fog that drifts in from the Atlantic Ocean.
But now few trees remain: In the time of the Guanche, all seven of the Canary Islands had rich cloud forests that trapped moisture from the fog-laden trade winds and quenched an otherwise dry region. Since then, though, much of the islands’ forests have been lost – removed for firewood, construction and to make way for farmland.
Land drying out: Most of the islands still have some degree of forest cover, but one, Lanzarote, is all but bare. Sometime in the last century, the last of the trees on high ground were cut down and the land began to dry out.
The plan: Now David Riebold, a British forestry scientist turned schoolteacher who owns a home on the island, wants to use artificial fog harvesting to bring back the cloud forest, in what promises to be the largest reforestation project ever attempted using the technology.
Chile project the model: Despite numerous attempts in the past decade, all efforts at reforestation have so far failed due to limited water supplies on the island. Riebold’s plan is to follow a successful research project in Chile by a Canadian cloud physicist called Bob Schernenauer, which harvested the fogs that regularly rolled in from the Pacific Ocean and across the rainless Atacama desert.
Plastic mesh the key: "Proyecto David", as the locals call it, got under way last summer. The town authorities erected eight modest fog-collecting devices on three of Lanzarole’s mountains: Aganada, Penas del Chache and La Quemada. Each is made up of a metal frame about 1 metre wide containing a plastic mesh, rather like a coarse net curtain.
Moisture condenses on netting: Any moisture that condenses onto the mesh runs down into a gutter and then empties into a plastic bottle. Larger scale set-ups can be fed into an irrigation system to supply water to
growing plants.
And it’s working! The initial results look promising. A litre a day should be enough to support one seedling, and Riebold has found that on some sites, a square metre of net catches an average of 2 litres of water each day.
New Scientist, 5/8/2006, p.37
Source: Erisk Net
Running electric currents through the earth can map salt contamination in groundwater supplies just as effectively as drilling boreholes, reported New Scientist (5 August 2006, p.23).
Wide application: The technique could provide a much faster way of monitoring groundwater in parched regions of the world such as the Middle East, where supplies can become contaminated by sea water seeping into inland aquifers.
Saltwater simply conducts better: A team led by Mohamed Khalil of Cairo University in Egypt mapped groundwater in the Sinai Peninsula between the Mediterranean and Red seas. They ran currents between electrodes in the ground and looked for variations that reveal fresh or salty water, since saltwater conducts electricity much better than fresh.
Technique works at depth: Using electrodes up to 6 kilometres apart it was possible to probe to a depth of just over 400 metres.
New Scientist, 5/8/2006, p.23
Source; Erisk Net