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Ministers from 10 countries bordering the North Sea (Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden) signed December 3, 2010 in London a letter of intent designed to to project power grid connecting their submarine country between them a reality.
The letter of intent is a way to define how the network will be developed. It covers several aspects of the project, from planning regulations to implement the framework, through the management of technical difficulties.
This ambitious grid submarine main purpose is to bring electricity produced in the North Sea, thanks to the energy of wind and waves, to the heart of Europe where demand is concentrated. Moreover, the establishment of such a tool is consistent with, for example, the development of the offshore wind industry, where winds are strongest and where the various permits necessary for construction are easier to get inland. Links by submarine cables, high voltage interconnected countries will also enable the network to import or export power as needed. This is finally a way to store large-scale energy from intermittent renewable sources, through hydroelectric dams are located mostly in Norway. Indeed, the electricity produced in excess can be used for raising water at altitude, and a share of this electricity (up over 85%) is subsequently recovered when the water flows from the dams. This procedure is already operating successfully around a high voltage link between the Netherlands and Norway.
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Committed to meet ambitious targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, the United Kingdom should formulate its energy policy accordingly.
In addition, the importance of the country’s strategy for electricity production is accentuated by the necessary renewal of a significant proportion of energy generation infrastructure happening in end of life. From these requirements, and seeking to preserve a safe, government action is based on four pillars: energy conservation, increased use of renewables, nuclear fleet renewal and development patterns production of cleaner energy from fossil fuels.
This last point is of course referring to technologies Capture and Storage (CCS). The United Kingdom was already planning to rely on such devices by linking them to central power generation from coal. Now, following an announcement by Chris Huhne, Minister of Energy and Climate Change, dated November 8, 2010, power plants fueled by natural gas are also concerned by the use of these technologies. This announcement is fully willing to give up important ways of generating electricity safe, clean and relatively inexpensive.
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The ensencement clouds (cloud seeding) is a weather modification technique to monitor weather phenomena such as fog and precipitation of rain or hail. In case of rain, the idea is to inject crystal particles (usually silver iodide crystals) inside clouds. Water droplets of clouds gather around the crystals finisssent by causing artificial rain fall.
Since its original use in 1946 in New York, this technology has spread widely throughout the world. In 2008 the Chinese government has used this technique in order to “dump” the clouds before they drew near Beijing during the opening ceremony of the Olympics. With prices ranging up to several million dollars, the operations of incense clouds are an expensive solution in the fight against drought.
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Researchers at the University of Bari (Puglia) completed the prototype of a machine to determine the origin of “PM10″ coarse particles in the atmosphere (those with diameters less than 10 micrometres) fall quickly enough to the ground but too high a concentration in the atmosphere is harmful to humans. They are thus responsible for a lowering of life expectancy of nearly nine months throughout Europe.
In 2009 the European Commission had initiated proceedings against ten Member States for non-compliance with the European standard for air quality on PM10 (in 2005 the state had undertaken not to exceed a threshold of 50 micrograms per cubic meter over 24 hours, and not to be exceeded more than 35 days per year). Italy (like Spain, Cyprus and Portugal) and is concerned to prove the effectiveness of its policy on air quality if it does not pay a fine.
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In an energy context marked both by the need to develop renewable energy more environmentally friendly and the medium term exhaustion of oil resources, micro-algae is a future challenge for biomass production and biofuels. Aware of the benefits of this technology, France and Germany are intensifying their efforts in R & D in the field of algocarburants.
A mission of French experts in Germany, held talks Scientific Service of the Embassy of France in Germany, was the opportunity to make an overview of the main German initiatives and to establish the groundwork for potential collaborations Franco German-sector level of technological innovation.
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The fear of a radical change in global average temperatures would cause a dramatic climate change and would have disastrous consequences for many countries and populations is widespread throughout the world.
What causes such a change, and is it possible to predict climate change as fast? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen shows that this change could be due to the accumulation of causes unrelated to each other, which could be difficult to predict. These results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Over millions of years, Earth’s climate has alternated between ice ages 100,000 years and inter-glacial periods from 10,000 to 15,000 years, as one in which we live today. The change of orbit of the Earth in space, so the slope and distance from Earth to the Sun, is the origin of these variations. Other climate change are yet emerged, which we do not always know the cause.
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There are 56 million years, a rapidly warming climate has led to a diversification of the forest flora in the northern Amazon basin. But it is unclear whether this early period is a good model of what happens today.
Many wonder about the consequences an increase of 2 or 3 ° C average temperature on tropical forests, reservoirs of biodiversity and important carbon sinks. Already amputated by deforestation and fires, these forests could be particularly affected, resulting in a reduction of terrestrial biodiversity and a revival of the greenhouse effect. Warming on forests would act by increasing drought and, beyond a certain threshold, about 35 ° C by altering the survival capacity of plants. Now Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and colleagues from several universities, show a strong warming impoverishes not necessarily plant biodiversity: during a period of about 200 000 years named Thermal Maximum Paleocene-Eocene (PETM), there are 56 million years, temperatures have increased by 5 ° C, and has yet diverse flora in a tropical region of northern Latin America.
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The Federal Ministry of Environment (BMU) will make available 10 million euros for the protection of tropical forests.
Summit in Nagoya, Japan, Norbert Rottgen, Federal Environment Minister, said “at present, nearly 13 million hectares of forest disappear annually tropical forests are also of exceptional importance good for biodiversity and for the fight against climate change. In their loss we destroy not only our resources essential to life but also those of future generations. “ Mr. Röttgen took part in Nagoya at a ministerial meeting on the theme of global partnership to protect tropical forests. This meeting took place as part of the tenth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 10) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This partnership promotes international negotiations on climate through the development of a global mechanism whose goal is to stop deforestation and destructive use of forests. This mechanism known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) was under discussion for several years.
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Just hours after a resolution prohibiting attempts geo-engineering has been adopted at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, the outgoing President of the Commission for Science and Technology of the House of Representatives Bart Gordon, unveiled a report Oct. 29 calling for further research on this controversial topic.
Climate engineering, often called “geo-engineering” is to deliberately altering climate to counter or at least mitigate anthropogenic climate change. It usually includes techniques of geo-engineering into 2 broad categories: removal of atmospheric carbon (“fertilizing” the oceans, increase in tree cover, etc..) And solar radiation management (dispersion of aerosols in the upper atmosphere, Positioning of reflecting mirrors in orbit, etc.).. This second category is one that raises the most ethical, political, and thus governance.
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Researchers at the University of Gottingen want to determine how biomass can now be generated without risk to the ecology and exploited optimally. 
The research project ” BEST ” (Intensification of regional biomass – new solutions in response to ecological , economic and social ) was launched by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research ( BMBF ) , will receive the 4 years a subsidy of around 4 million. Besides the 21 departments of the University of Gottingen , 10 other partners are involved in this project, coordinated by the Center for Research on forest ecosystems in the Faculty of Forestry, Göttingen.
Biomass production is steadily increasing. Due to limited arable land, biomass production is at the heart of a conflict of interest. For example , the fields of rapeseed , grown for biogas plants , are surfaces that are missing from the production of foodstuffs.
The impact of bioenergy production on biodiversity remains unclear. The objective of the research program ” BEST ” is therefore to develop regional concepts and provide instructions on biomass production .
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The letter of intent is a way to define how the network will be developed. It covers several aspects of the project, from planning regulations to implement the framework, through the management of technical difficulties.
In addition, the importance of the country’s strategy for electricity production is accentuated by the necessary renewal of a significant proportion of energy generation infrastructure happening in end of life. From these requirements, and seeking to preserve a safe, government action is based on four pillars: energy conservation, increased use of renewables, nuclear fleet renewal and development patterns production of cleaner energy from fossil fuels.
What causes such a change, and is it possible to predict climate change as fast? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen shows that this change could be due to the accumulation of causes unrelated to each other, which could be difficult to predict. These results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Many wonder about the consequences an increase of 2 or 3 ° C average temperature on tropical forests, reservoirs of biodiversity and important carbon sinks. Already amputated by deforestation and fires, these forests could be particularly affected, resulting in a reduction of terrestrial biodiversity and a revival of the greenhouse effect. Warming on forests would act by increasing drought and, beyond a certain threshold, about 35 ° C by altering the survival capacity of plants. Now Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and colleagues from several universities, show a strong warming impoverishes not necessarily plant biodiversity: during a period of about 200 000 years named Thermal Maximum Paleocene-Eocene (PETM), there are 56 million years, temperatures have increased by 5 ° C, and has yet diverse flora in a tropical region of northern Latin America.
The research project ” BEST ” (Intensification of regional biomass – new solutions in response to ecological , economic and social ) was launched by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research ( BMBF ) , will receive the 4 years a subsidy of around 4 million. Besides the 21 departments of the University of Gottingen , 10 other partners are involved in this project, coordinated by the Center for Research on forest ecosystems in the Faculty of Forestry, Göttingen.