Solar Flare
Solar flare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Two successive photos of a solar flare phenomenon evolving on the sun. The solar disk was blocked in these photos for better visualization of the flare
A solar flare is a large explosion in the Sun‘s atmosphere that can release as much as 6 × 1025 joules of energy.[1] The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.
Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, corona, and chromosphere), heating plasma to tens of millions of kelvins and accelerating electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light. They produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays. Most flares occur in active regions around sunspots, where intense magnetic fields penetrate the photosphere to link the corona to the solar interior. Flares are powered by the sudden (timescales of minutes to tens of minutes) release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. If a solar flare is exceptionally powerful, it can cause coronal mass ejections.
Options for Railway Locomotives
Latest update {Draft XI:05) of “Post-Carbon Australian Options for Railway Locomotives” has been released on the net for public comment from my website at http://www.auzgnosis.com/pgs/auzloco.htm (while the draft will still have the same file-name I will keep updating the actual file there to the latest version as any future improvement are made). I’d be real Continue Reading →
Solar panels are not fashion accessories
Solar panels are not fashion accessories
Economies of scale in manufacturing are causing rapid reductions in costs and solar energy has a bright
future
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- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 March 2010 17.30 GMT
- Article history
George Monbiot’s attack on solar energy and the government’s “cash-back” solar photovoltaic (PV) market-building scheme paints a distorted picture of the industry I work in, and government policy towards it (Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?, 2 March).
First, Monbiot gets the workability of solar wrong. He says: “The amount of power PV panels produce at this latitude is risible, [and] they also produce it at the wrong time.” Those who buy panels, therefore, will own a mere “fashion accessory”. The companies who manufacture solar PV in the UK have shown that putting solar panels on all available building surfaces would generate more electricity in a year, under typical cloudy British skies, than the entire electricity consumption of our energy-profligate nation. Some fashion accessory.
Batten down the hatches, a political storm is brewing
Batten down the hatches, a political storm is brewing Climate change in Australia — of the political variety — is real and happening now. As a fresh opinion poll rolls in every few days, the underlying trend is moving inexorably against Labor. Here’s a sampling over the past week: Federal: Newspoll, published today, shows little change in party polling (government Continue Reading →
Caltech Researchers Create Highly Absorbing, Flexible solarCells with Silicon Wire Arrays,
Caltech Researchers Create Highly Absorbing, Flexible Solar Cells with Silicon Wire Arrays
by Lori Oliwenstein, Caltech
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.
“These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials,” says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech’s Resnick Institute, which focuses on sustainability research.
Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, accordind to report
Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report
The expansion of plantations has pushed the orang-utan to the brink of extinction in Sumatra, where it takes 840 years for a palm oil plantation to soak up the carbon emitted when rainforest is burnt
Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times.
The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.
Under the standard, each litre of biofuel should reduce emissions by at least 35 per cent compared with burning a litre of fossil fuel. Yet the study shows that palm oil increases emissions by 31 per cent because of the carbon released when forest and grassland is turned into plantations. Rape seed and soy also fail to meet the standard.