Miraculous and Breathtaking Underground Lakes in Nature

I came across some of these underground pictures on the net..thought of sharing the wonders of nature to stimulate us on preserving the nature =]

Luray Caverns, originally called Luray Cave and discovered in 1878, is a large, celebrated commercial cave just west of Luray, Virginia, USA,. The water is that color from copper, and the lighting.




Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico , is the fifth longest cave discovered yet at 120 miles (193 km) long and measures 489 metres (1,604 ft) deep, making it the deepest in continental United States.




Banff, Alberta Canada


Reed Flute Cave in Guilin, China was discovered during the Tang Dynasty almost 1,300 years ago.It’s a huge underground cave system with stunning rock formations, stalagmites and stalactites, illuminated with coloured lights. The cave can hold comfortably 1000 people.




Cheddar Gorge is Britain’s biggest canyon and is found within the Cheddar Caves, where the UK’s oldest complete human skeleton was found in 1903. Known as the Cheddar Man, the remains were estimated to be 9,000 years old.




Krizna jama is a cave located in Loška dolina, Slovenia. The cave is particularly noted for its chain of twenty-two subterranean lakes of emerald green water.





This underground lake near Macan Ché on the Yucatán Peninsula is one of many that are considered to be gifts from the gods by the Mayans, and therefore sacred.





Wookey Hole Caves is a show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The caves, at a constant temperature of 11 °C (52 °F), have been used by humans for around 50,000 years. The low temperature means that the caves can be used for maturing Cheddar cheese.





Hamilton Pool Preserve is a natural pool that was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to massive erosion thousands of years ago. The pool is located about 23 miles (37 km) west of Austin, Texas off Highway 71. One of the most outstanding features of the pool is its 45 foot (14 m) waterfall that spills from the dome above. The preserve is home to some small fish and turtles, which are protected by strict regulation.

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Unite for Earth Hour 28th March 2009 !

On the latest current issues, especially right now, we’re surrounded by news about the recession, the economic down turn, the credit crunch, the blackmail politics…. and so the list never ends. Weather’s running insane around the world, but nobody seems to bother, because right now, all people can think about is to find a way to make or save money. Well, no matter how much money you have, if you don’t take responsibility and care about the one and only planet we have to live on, what’s the use of having millions when the world we know of is falling apart?


What is Earth Hour?

Earth hour is an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth Hour started off in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and in 2008, it went global and almost 50 million people switched off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness for an hour. 931 cities and towns in 80 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming.


Some current events that may enlighten you as to how the world is falling apart !

Snow has fallen in London for the first time in October since 1934 and heavy snows are falling even now and it’s disrupting travel and costing the government millions of pounds.




Australia’s bushfire death toll is at 181 (on Feb 10) and rising, one of the worst disaster Australia’s had in 110 years.


Almost everything we do emits carbon dioxide, even breathing! The car we drive, the electricity we use so freely comes from a plant which burns fuel. Indirectly, the clothes we wear comes from a factory which uses tonnes of electricity, the rice we eat comes from a field which was burned to fertilize the soil, etc.


How do we play our role in Earth Hour?

Well, there are plenty of ways, One of the easiest, is to switch off unnecessary switches, e.g. when you’re not in the room, switch off your lights, shut down your computer instead of putting it to sleep, switch off all standby items when you go to sleep at night - TV, water heater. Not only will you reduce your carbon footprint that way, you’ll also save on your electricity bills! And to kick start your switching off habit, why not join the rest of the world in switching off your lights and everything else you can switch off for an hour starting 8:30pm on the 28th March 2009!


Join these Countries =]

Many buildings in Sydney turned off their lights in 2007 (Australia) =)




Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House were darkened during Earth Hour 2007 =P




Colosseum darkened for Earth Hour 2008 ^^




Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands public open space in the background, before(insert) and during Earth Hour 2008 (USA) =D




The Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand, switched off its usual floodlighting during the Earth Hour, and re-lit afterwards =]

More Information Here at:
www.earthhour.org

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Take Part In An Energy Revolution =P

Energy revolution outlines a global plan for a sustainable renewable economic future. It was developed with specialists from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the world. To go from a world powered by nuclear and fossil fuels to one running on renewable energy. Many can reduce the destructive impact caused by Energy Usage.

Once more, what you can do to stop climate change ?
Climate Change is a broader term that refers to long-term changes in climate, including earth's measured average temperature and precipitation. According to Greenpeace, there are certain compound which contribute to the change in the climate and one of them, the coal has devastating effect. Coal fired power plants are the biggest source of man made CO2 emissions. This makes coal energy the single greatest threat facing our climate.

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, including widespread drought, flooding and massive population displacement caused by rising sea levels, we need to keep global temperature rise below 2ºC (compared to pre-industrial levels). To do this, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 and from there go down to zero.

A third of all carbon dioxide emissions come from burning coal. It's used to produce nearly 40 percent of the world’s power, and hundreds of new coal plants are planned over the next years if the industry gets its way. Apart from climate change, coal also causes irreparable damage to the environment, people’s health and communities around the world. While the coal industry itself isn’t paying for the damage it causes, the world at large is.

Coal sounds bad, but we need a real solution to to quit using coals. The world has enough technically accessible renewable energy to meet current energy demands six times over. We need an energy revolution that substitutes wind, solar, energy efficiency and other modern technologies for dirty energy sources like coal.

One of these Carbon, Capture and Storage (CCS) is a plan to capture carbon emissions from power stations and bury them underground. The technology won’t be ready for at least another 20 years, too late to save the climate. Yet the vague promises of CCS are being used to justify building new coal-fired plants. These plants will spew out enormous amounts of CO2 pollution for at least the next 20 years and probably during their whole 40-year lifetime. In short, any new coal fired power plant will contribute massively to the climate crisis.

As world leaders fail to step up and take the necessary action to stop coal, people across the world are taking on the struggles themselves. Across the world environmental activists, students, doctors, church leaders and many more are mobilising against coal. We live in this world, lets initiate an action to proceed one step further in saving this world=]

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Browsing Internet == Damaging Environment

Environmental experts warned that browsing a website like Google could cause as much damage to the environment by generating more carbon dioxide as the aviation industry. If you do a Google search once, it generates about seven grams of carbon dioxide -- about one half of boiling a kettle of water for tea, which produces about 15 grams.

The CO2 emissions are caused by the electricity that is required to power a user’s computer and the electricity that is used by Google’s servers or other website’s server. The electricity is mostly generated by fossil fuels which then emit more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist from Harvard University, has calculated how much a single visit to a website produces CO2. It produces about 0.02 grams of CO2 for every second they are viewed. If the site has more multimedia features, then it will produce even more CO2 amounts close to 0.20 grams per second.

Environmental experts not only blame Google but the entire information technology industry. According to Gartner, an American research firm, the IT industry produces about two percent of global CO2 emissions and their carbon footprint exceeded aviation industry for the first time in 2007.


To save energy google has two customized versions ::

do your major role here in saving the environment=]





www.blackle.com





and



www.googlenight.com

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Natural Gas Vehicle

Even though this may seem inappropriate for an environment subject, it does contribute to the reduction of pollutants otherwise derived from conventional automobile vehicles.

Have you ever have the urge to save the environment by reducing the
emission of Carbon Dioxide(CO2) and at the same time you are driving a car which emits a lot of Carbon dioxide ? The international gas commodity has increased , have you ever feel burdened by the pricey increase of gasoline? Does it sound familiar to you ? or you’re totally clueless on what is NGV .

Here’s a clue on NGV, it is a alternative fuel vehicle which uses compressed natural gas (CNG) or, uncommonly , liquefied natural gas (LNG). Undeniably, natural gas vehicle or better known as NGV is more environment friendly. It relies on chemistry instead of combustion of gasoline. Moreover NGV is widely popular among taxi

In United States, the Honda Civic GX was the first dedicated mass-produced natural gas vehicle when it went on sale in 1998 and has been recognized by the EPA, as the cleanest internal combustion engine in the world. Truly, Honda understands the need for environmental care and the total independence in the future for petroleum based products to fuel their engines.

The primary components of natural gas in methane, the shortest and lightest hydrocarbon molecule. However, it may also contain heavier hydrocarbon components such as ethane, propane, and butane as well as other gases, in varying amounts. Hydrogen sulfide is a common contaminant, which must be removed prior to most uses.

Currently with the increase of fuel commodity, NGV is becoming widely popular especially for taxi drivers. The alternative fuel saving and environmental friendly NGV has certainly attracted people from various countries to implement it. Such countries with NGV vehicles used widely are Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, China, Italy, India and Iran with south america leading with a global market share of 48%.

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Global Overview on Environment

It is not difficult to become a believer in global warming. According to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center 2001 was the second warmest year on record and it was the 23rd consecutive year of above normal temperatures. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that the rate of temperature increase is accelerating. Add to this the data just released from insurer Munich Re stating that deaths from natural disasters were more than double in 2001 versus 2000 and insured losses were up more than 50%.UNEP estimates that the extra economic costs of disasters attributable to global warming are running at more than $300 billion annually.

Some 180 countries are proceeding toward an expected ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the end of this year. Of the six gases it will control CO2 is by far the largest contributing nearly 90% of the global warming impact. The primary source of CO2 is the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore the focus on energy will continue to increase.

Throughout the world different methods are being used to encourage reduced energy use. Japan has enacted the Energy Conservation Law in 1999 mandating huge efficiency improvements by 2004 for nearly all air conditioning products. The U.S. has revised ASHRAE Standard 90.1 for buildings to raise the minimum COP level for centrifugal chillers from the current value of 5.2 to 6.1 effective in October 2001. DOE and Green Seal have revised their recommended efficiency levels to an even higher level of 6.27.

Some countries use laws. Others use codes and standards. An increasing number of countries are using environmental costing which increases the price of energy thereby increasing the financial attractiveness of high efficiency products. European countries have been using such “carbon taxes” for more than a decade. However a rapidly growing trend in developing countries is the reduction of subsidies to energy industries “so prices more accurately reflect environmental impacts” according to OECD’s Environmental Strategy for the First Decade of the 21st Century.

China has shown leadership by reducing subsidies to the coal industry from $24.5 billion in 1990 to $10 billion in 1996 resulting in 7% emissions reduction while seeing a solid economic growth of 36%! China is now moving aggressively into environmental costing with the just announced (1/13/2002) 5-year environmental plan that commits 700 billion yuan ($84 billion) to help protect the environment. The government will provide the fist 65 billion yuan to initiate the project but will apply the “polluter pays” principle for the rest. The “environmental protection authorities will collect funds from the pollution-producing companies”. The impact on the price of energy is not known at this time. However it is clear that the addition of environmental costing will increase energy prices. According to a European Research Commission Report of July 2001 “The cost of producing electricity from coal or oil would double if costs such as damage to the environment and health were taken into account”.

The global movement to high efficiency is accelerating just like the rate of temperature increase. But this is not all that is changing. This second environmental threat of global warming is making it clear that we need to give combined consideration to ozone depletion and global warming. But more important is the need to focus on the real issue which is the total environmental impact not address each individual environmental threat in isolation. This includes the concept of environmental risk exposure, which recognizes that there are other environmental threats that are less well understood today. However, there are “no regrets” decisions we can make today (such as minimum refrigerant charge, minimum atmospheric life refrigerants, etc.) to minimize these risks.

Combined consideration would place more emphasis on reducing the use of CFCs, which are still being produced in developing countries until 2010 in accordance with the Montreal Protocol. Little attention is being given the large contribution to global warming from CFCs. Actions which cause confusion and delay the phaseout of CFCs cause increased environmental damage rather than lessening the environmental impact.

The other rapidly changing factor in the HVAC industry is the shift to becoming a hermetic industry, where refrigerant is contained throughout the life of a chiller and recycled for further use when the chiller is replaced. This simple understanding that “if it doesn’t get into the environment it does no harm” is a powerful argument, which will lead to the continued use of the most efficient refrigerants in such closed hermetic applications as chillers. In just 15 years annual refrigerants emissions from chillers have been reduced from 25% to well below 1% today. This defines a whole different world than that which existed when the Montreal Protocol was crafted some 15 years ago.

But perhaps the most important change coming to our industry is the realization that there are no new or “perfect” refrigerants waiting to be discovered. There are eight elements that can be combined for use in a vapor compression cycle. All feasible combinations of these eight have been evaluated. The reality is “what we have now is all there is”.

This recognition is why we are now seeing a shift from the search for a perfect refrigerant to a search for the right refrigerant(s) for the right application. Said another way, the highest efficiency refrigerants for the lowest emissions applications. Many in our industry call this “Responsible Use”.

by: Larry Butz
Original Post

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Wood Gas - The Future Biomass-Derived Fuel

Let's assume, that you own a farm. You produce grain and have a lot of straw.
You'd like to make your energy on site from the biomass you have available.
You might plant your fields with rapeseed or canola and produce biodiesel.
But you'd need to get methanol and lye first, since both of them can't be made there!
And you can use your biodiesel only in compression ignition (diesel) engines.
And what if you have an old genset powered by spark-ignition (gasoline / petrol) engine? I think I might have a solution for you...

You'll make use of a technology that's more than 200 years old. It's greatest development took place during World War II in 1940s in Europe. At that time most of petroleum-derived fuels were used by military and there was no fuel left for civilians. So they made their own fuel, the wood gas from wood or charcoal. In some countries 95% of civilian transport (trucks, buses, even fishermen's boats) were fueled with this gas.

What is this wood gas? From chemical point of view it's a mixture of combustible carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4), dilluted with some water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2). This gas can be easily used for almost every internal combustion engine. Well... except for the most modern ones, they'd require to have their electronics to be modified.

How wood gas is made? When you heat wood it is pyrolysed, i.e. all the tars vaporize. When you add some oxygen, the carbon bound within the wood cells is burnt to carbon dioxide. The vapors burn too. When those burnt gasses pass through a layer of very hot char,
they are reduced to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. A small amount of methane is also produced. When the gas is cooled and cleaned of any tars and particles, it can be used in internal combustion engine, boiler or any other device!

What do you need to produce your own wood gas? You'd need a device that's called gasifier. It consists of fuel hopper, gasifying chamber and a set of filters. It's very easy to build, the people during WWII made it out of old water heaters and stuff like that.


Is wood gas safe? Well, if you don't inhale it, you'll be OK. Carbon monoxide is very toxic and poisonous, so caution is required when using wood gas. From the engine point of view, if it's clean, it's safe. The tars might condense inside the engine, for example on valves, which might cause the engine to fail. The particles would probably destroy the contact surfaces on pistons and cylinders. If the gas is too hot the engine will not work (hot gas is diluted and has small energy content per unit volume), but it will not harm it.

Any drawbacks ?One that's worth mentioning. Petrol engines will suffer 1/3 power loss --the wood gas does have small heating value. Diesel engines will not suffer such power loss, since they work on stratified mixtures and because of that you can introduce more wood gas to recover the power loss.You'd need to leave some small amount of diesel to be injected to the cylinders to ignite the wood gas.

Interested? One liter of petrol / gasoline can be replaced with 2.5 - 4 kg (5.5 - 9 lbs) of wood. How cool is that!

by: Krzysztof Lis
Original Post

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