Nuclear fusion offers millions of years of energy with virtually no carbon impact. The problem is that, until now, no one has worked out how to do it reliably.

The “Holy Grail” of clean energy that could clean up our planet is nearer than we think, an international nuclear-fusion conference of more than 100 scientists agreed in Canberra last week.

The first stage towards success was already under way in Europe with an international effort to stabilise a doughnut-shaped plasma (the fourth state of matter) at a temperature of 100 million degrees with a giant version of a microwave oven.

No problems there, the scientists agreed: fusion has no safety problems compared with nuclear fission plants, producing less than a hundredth of radioactivity in incidental processes.

Nuclear fission is our dangerously dirty and accident-prone method of producing energy at the expense of radioactive waste by splitting atoms. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, is based on fusing the nuclei of two atoms. It produces more energy and is radioactively clean. It produces limitless energy (electric power) from seawater or lithium. Nuclear fusion offers millions of years of energy with virtually no carbon impact. The problem is that, until now, no one has worked out how to do it reliably.

Professor Boyd Blackwell, director of Australia’s Plasma Research Facility, said the great problem of the fusion programme was that magnetic fields could break into chaotic shapes.

When you need a reactor that is economical and can be maintained remotely, then you must have perfect symmetry of the plasma formation. Magnetic fields can break into chaotic shapes, especially when you are trying to make them in a three-dimensional reactor.

We use waves carrying energy to the plasma and make these waves resonate with the plasma particles by choosing the right frequency. The trick is to make a force field which holds the particles in place without letting the heat escape.

The “doughnut” problem was that a perfect formation of its plasma is two-dimensional. The programme has to make it work in a three-dimensional world in practical terms and, said Blackwell, this should be achieved within 20 years after producing 500 million watts from the first-stage machines.

This “serious amount of power” would give development investors confidence in the demonstrator reactors – which will have a potential of developing two to 10 times greater watts capacity. At this stage mass-production of clean and reliable fusion reactors can be expected.

The replacement of the world’s coal-powered and nuclear plants would begin. This would have to be a gradual effect because we now have so many coal-powered plants. So a second stage of perhaps another 20 years to accomplish effective replacements with fusion energy would take place.

What we had to keep in mind, Blackwell said, was this was the biggest pay-off you could imagine in cleaning up our world, with damage causing immense climate-change costs. This is, more or less, free energy from the point of view of fusion power stations in the long-term. The fuel cost is near zero to power stations in the long-term. But creating the machines to use it is not and they will be similar in cost to the already escalating price of producing fossil fuel energy and solar energy.

But eventually the world will achieve freedom from the causes of climate change and the appalling costs of nuclear fission disasters.

The world could then lessen much of the damage already done by cleansing its energy production and, agreed the Canberra conference: the means is in sight. - Sunday Tribune

Engineers have built a cost-effective prototype for floating, rotating solar panels.

San Giuliano, Italy - Rays of the winter sun bounce off gleaming mirrors on the tiny lake of Colignola in Italy, where engineers have built a cost-effective prototype for floating, rotating solar panels.

“You are standing on a photovoltaic floating plant which tracks the sun, it's the first platform of its kind in the world!” said Marco Rosa-Clot, a professor at Florence University, proudly showing off his new project.

Rosa-Clot and his team say they are revolutionising solar power and that their floating flower-petal-like panels soaking up the Tuscan sun have already attracted a lot of interest from international buyers.

Standard solar panels on buildings or in fields have been criticised for taking up valuable agricultural land, being unsightly and losing energy through overheating - issues the floating plants would resolve.

The Floating Tracking Cooling Concentrator (FTCC) system is designed to exploit unused areas of artificial reservoirs or disused quarries.

While the water keeps the panels at low temperatures, reflectors are positioned to maximised solar capture at different times of day, making it more efficient than a traditional installation, Rosa-Clot said.

The head of Scintec, a small family business which produces a variety of renewable energy and industrial devices, Rosa-Clot said the pilot plant set up on the lake near Pisa, Tuscany, was a model of efficiency.

“It's a small-scale design, 30 kilowatts, which would suffice for a dozen or so families. The standard is set at 3kW per apartment,” he said.

At an estimated price of around 1,600 euros per kW including installation, a plant the size of Colignola could cost some 48,000 euros (about R500 000).

Scintec says its system costs 20 percent less than ground-based structures.

The flat panels are winged by reflectors and sit on raft-like structures which are anchored to the lake bed with a pylon.

Decked out in jeans and jacket, the engineer explained the benefit that a place like sun-kissed Sicily with its 75 square kilometres (29 square miles) of artificial reservoirs and lakes could draw from the system.

“If we covered just 10 percent of that area with floating photovoltaic panels, we would have one gigawatt of power installed,” he said Ä enough to power 10 million 100-watt light bulbs.

Engineer Raniero Cazzaniga, who works on the project, said that some people think classic solar installations are spoiling the landscape.

“Our system is designed for low-lying quarries. The installation is only about a metre (three feet) high and usually you can't see it until you get to the water's edge. It is not at all intrusive,” he said.

Their cost-efficient project has sparked international interest.

Rosa-Clot said: “Reactions from abroad have been very positive. Some Koreans came to Pisa to see us and we signed a three-year contract giving them a license to build this sort of installation in South Korea.”

The Korean company Techwin has built a floating photovoltaic plant using the FTCC technology, and in Italy the Terra Moretti group has installed one on an irrigation reservoir at its winery near Livorno.

Rosa-Clot and his team are in talks with “Germans, French and Italian companies” hoping to stay ahead of the curve on water-based solar energy.

“There is no miraculous solution to the energy problem,” he said. “Our project will make it possible to have a far greater number of photovoltaic installations at an ever lower cost.” - Sapa-AFP

Researchers have discovered a new family of legless amphibians in north-east India that have ancient links with Africa.

New Delhi - Researchers have discovered a new family of legless amphibians in north-east India that have ancient links with Africa, it was announced on Wednesday.

The discovery of the tailless burrowing caecilians was made by a team of international scientists led by Professor SD Biju from Delhi University, the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London reported.

The scientists conducted soil surveys at 238 sites, beginning in 2006.

The caecilians, said to superficially resemble earthworms, are one of the three categories of amphibians. They live hidden in the ground and are among the least explored orders of the amphibians.

“Scientists performed DNA analysis of the specimens and confirmed that it is an entirely new family,” Biju said.

The new family has been named Chikilidae and the new species, Chikila, derived from Garo, a tribal language spoken in the region.

Researchers estimate that the newly discovered caecilians evolved separately from other species of caecilians more than 140 million years ago.

The new family is of ancient lineage whose closest relatives occur in Africa, a relationship established hundreds of millions of years ago before India broke away from Africa and collided with Asia creating the Himalayan mountain range.

“The work is a significant contribution to the understanding of vertebrate evolution and biogeography,” Biju said.

Scientists also said the discovery highlighted north-east India as a poorly studied region likely to harbour additional ancient lineages of organisms found nowhere else on earth. - Sapa-dpa

Dolphins are so intelligent that they should be thought of as “non-human persons” and given their own bill of rights, says a group of scientists.

London - Dolphins are so intelligent that they should be thought of as “non-human persons” and given their own bill of rights, it is claimed.

A coalition of scientists, philosophers and animal welfare groups have come up with a declaration of dolphin rights which they hope will one day be enshrined in law.

This would stop them being kept in zoos and waterparks, and being attacked by fishermen.

Whales would also be elevated above other animals by the list of rules, leading to whalers being classed as murderers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference heard in Vancouver.

Whale watching trips would be subject to regulations which would respect the creatures’ privacy and developers and oil companies would have to give huge consideration to the effect their projects would have on the animals’ life and culture.

Philosopher Thomas White said: “Scientific evidence is now strong enough to support the claim that dolphins are, like humans, self-aware, intelligent beings with emotions and personalities. Accordingly, dolphins should be regarded as ‘non-human persons’ and valued as individuals. From an ethical perspective, the injury, deaths and captivity of dolphins are wrong.”

Those who drew up the bill of rights are known as the Helsinki Group and include UK members of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

They say that thanks to advances in science, it is now clear that dolphins are extremely intelligent, complex and sensitive mammals.

The bill of rights states that every individual member of the cetacean order – whales, dolphins and porpoises – has a right to life. It also says that no one has the right to own the creatures or to do anything that undermines their rights, freedoms or norms.

Its authors are using the Vancouver conference to try to get more scientists and members of the public on their side. They believe this is a step towards eventually persuading governments to enshrine the principles in law.

When brain weight is compared with body weight, the dolphin has the second-largest brain on the planet after humans.

The conference heard that dolphins are self-aware – they can recognise themselves in the mirror.

There are also examples of them grieving for lost calves, feeding ailing pod mates and co-operating with fishermen when there is a meal in it for them.

In Laguna, Brazil, when a shoal of fish enters the lagoon, the dolphins herd it towards the fishermen. Any fish that escape their nets provide an easy meal.

At Dingle, south-west Ireland, a bottlenose nicknamed Fungie regularly entertains sightseers in boats. Perhaps the most striking example of dolphin intelligence involves Kelly, a member of a pod at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi which were rewarded with fish for clearing up litter from their pool.

Each piece of litter equated to one fish. To raise her intake of fish, Kelly tore the litter into pieces and presented them one by one. One day, she caught a gull and was given a large haul of fish for her efforts.

She then started to use the fish she won for litter picking to lure gulls into her jaws. She also taught the tactic to her calf, which passed it on to other youngsters in the pod.

AND THEY WATCH TELEVISION TOO …

Given the opportunity, dolphins will watch TV and follow instructions delivered on the screen. Chimps do this only after months of training.

Dolphins can be taught to understand human words, sentences and demands.

Like humans, dolphins are altruistic and there are examples of them going to the aid of swimmers and surfers attacked by sharks.

They use body language. The “side-flop”, jumping clear of the water and landing on their side, is thought to mean: “I want to go now.”

They have regional accents, with the whistles made by those off Wales different to those living off the Irish coast.

They have a form of adult onset diabetes but are able to turn it on and off. Learning how they do this could lead to new treatments for the human form of the condition.

Males woo females by presenting them with gifts from bouquets of weed to sticks and lumps of marine debris. - Daily Mail

A new species of bat has been discovered in Vietnam.

Hanoi - A new species of bat has been discovered in Vietnam, a scientific journal said.

“Griffin's leaf-nosed bat” was identified after scientists picked up a distinctive echolocation in two parts in the country, said an article in the Journal of Mammology, which was published on Monday in the United States.

The Hipposideros griffini is slightly smaller than the other 70 species within the genus and has a fleshier nose.

It was found at Cat Ba Island in Ha Long Bay in northern Vietnam and in Chu Mom Ray National Park in the south.

Vietnam is a key area of biodiversity in Asia, but many species are threatened by hunting and deforestation. - Sapa-dpa

Large parts of Britain are facing a drought this year after groundwater reached levels not seen for more than 35 years.

London - Large parts of Britain are facing a drought this year after groundwater reached levels not seen for more than 35 years, which could spell restrictions for farmers and households.

Rivers, canals and reservoirs are running low after a second dry winter in a row, with some areas receiving less than 70 percent of normal amounts.

Ministers are meeting with water companies, the environment agency, weather forecasters and agricultural bodies to see what can be done to mitigate its impact and prevent future droughts.

“Unfortunately ... there is a high risk that parts of the country will almost certainly be in drought next summer,” Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said on her department's website.

While Scotland has seen its heaviest rainfall since records began 100 years ago and Wales and northwest England have been relatively wet, other parts of England have had their driest 12 months on record, with central and eastern England particularly affected.

Central England has seen about 70 percent of its average rainfall, or less.

Two water companies, Anglian Water and Southern Water, have been forced to apply for drought permits, allowing them to take water from new sources.

South East Water has applied for a drought order, which goes further and restricts the non-essential use of water. About 65,000 properties are at risk of standpipes or rota cuts to supply.

Unless England sees more rainfall, many more households face rationing, such as hosepipe bans, though authorities are not yet talking about people having to queue for water, as they did in many parts of Britain during a heatwave in 1976.

There is also a concern that food prices may rise if Britain's wheat production is damaged, as well as other foodstuffs.

“While last year it was principally the farmers that were affected by the dry winter ... I think it is more likely that the public water supply will be affected unless we have substantial rainfall between now and the summer,” Spelman told BBC radio.

She said a hosepipe ban had only been prevented last year because the water industry had invested in reducing leakages by 36 percent since the mid-1990s.

The dry weather has led to a higher-than-average number of environmental incidents such as fish being rescued, algal blooms, reduced cereal and potato yields, wildfires, and navigation restrictions.

Meanwhile, Britain has had unusually good soft fruit crops.

Monday's meeting will discuss how water companies can better detect leaks, how farmers can share water resources and how livestock farmers can plan ahead for fodder and bedding supplies.

Transporting water to affected areas will not be on the agenda as it is expensive to carry over large distances, Spelman said.

The environment department is also working with agricultural and food sectors to improve irrigation technology, and develop more water efficient crops and markets for drought affected produce. - Reuters

Chinese cobras are commonly used to make snake wine, medicine and soup, and are particularly popular in mainland China.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong police found nearly 800 cobras that they believe were being smuggled for sale as a delicacy, a report said on Sunday.

The 789 venomous Chinese cobras were found packed into 181 plastic boxes and hidden in bushes behind a beach on Hong Kong's Lantau island, the Sunday Morning Post newspaper reported.

Animal management officials put the snakes down with lethal injections, saying they could not be released into the wild because they would pose a threat to people's safety.

Chinese cobras are commonly used to make snake wine, medicine and soup, and are particularly popular in mainland China. - Sapa-dpa

Karbochem has discovered the cause of the deadly cyanide spillage into a KZN river.

Mechanical failure at a synthetic rubber manufacturer caused cyanide to leak into the raw water supply of towns in northern KwaZulu-Natal, the company said on Monday.

“It was found that mechanical failure of equipment caused contaminated water to leak into the storm water system,” said Karbochem spokesman Jaco Prinsloo.

“The equipment has been repaired and steps have been taken to prevent a recurrence.”

On Thursday, cyanide spilled into a stream near the Karbochem site in Newcastle. The stream flows into the Ngagane river which was the source of the area's raw water supplies.

There have been no reports of human fatalities, but the spillage did result in the death of 12 heads of cattle.

Karbochem has offered to compensate farmers and local residents in the area who had been affected.

“We take full responsibility for the 12 cows that have died.”

Karbochem was in discussions with the two affected farmers on their compensation.

Prinsloo said in a statement that clean-up operations were completed and site operations had returned to normal.

After the spillage last week, the river was flushed and by Friday afternoon Karbochem reported the water was safe.

“ 1/8The cyanide levels are 3/8 far within the safe and legal limits,” said Prinsloo.

He said tests of the water revealed less that 50 parts of cyanide per million parts of water as legally required.

“The levels are very far below that. It is below two parts per million.”

Acting regional director for water resource management Jay Reddy said the department handed an investigation into the spillage over to the compliance monitoring and enforcement unit of the department of water affairs.

“Once the investigations are done, the department will decide what steps to take.”

Prinsloo said he could not comment on any legal action against Karbochem as the matter was sub judice at this stage. -

Sapa

An orphaned rhino calf's sight has been restored after surgery to remove cataracts, a local newspaper has reported.

Johannesburg - An orphaned rhino calf's sight has been restored after surgery to remove cataracts, Beeld newspaper reported on Monday.

The calf was blinded when it was hit on the head by poachers.

Yvonne Gioa, owner of the Elandela private game reserve outside Hoedspruit in Mpumalanga, told the newspaper the operation was a miracle.

Roccy, the rhino calf, was taken to the Onderstepoort veterinary research institute on the back of a truck on January 3.

Dr Anthony Goodhead removed two cataracts that had developed on the calf's retinas.

During a follow-up consultation in Hoedspruit this week, Goodhead found that the operation had been a success, and said he was very happy with Roccy's progress. - Sapa

The assessment will take into account how development along Australia's northeast coast is affecting the reef.

Sydney - Australia will carry out a comprehensive assessment of development pressure on the Great Barrier Reef to help preserve the world's largest coral reef system, ministers said on Saturday.

The assessment will take into account how development along Australia's northeast coast is affecting the reef, Environment Minister Tony Burke said in a joint statement with the Queensland state government.

In 2010, part of the reef was damaged when a Chinese-owned coal ship, the Shen Neng 1, ran aground on it.

The assessment would be the largest of its type ever conducted in Australia and would examine planning applications for rapidly developing Queensland, they said.

The state is an important exporter of commodities as well as a major tourist destination. The reef is one of its main tourist attractions and is visible from space.

“Rather than always dealing with one application at a time this allows an assessment of the region as a whole,” Burke said in the statement. “That gives us an opportunity to take into account the cumulative impacts and any indirect impacts such as increased shipping movement.”

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Russell Reichelt said it was a chance to take a long-term view of how best to manage the reef.

“It is up to us to protect this extraordinary place for generations to come,” he said.

Queensland state environment minister Vicky Darling said the assessment would “ensure development is well-planned and systems are in place to protect the area's World Heritage values”.

The assessment will be discussed next month with a delegation from UN body Unesco, she said. - Reuters