Environment

Yesterday, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, made an exciting announcement on Twitter that orders for their innovative solar roof tiles were opening that afternoon. After the first teaser tweet, Musk went on to provide more information, namely that the roof can be ordered for “almost any country” for a deposit of $1000.

The challenge of converting salt water into drinking water is one that has been testing scientists for quite some time, but with our supplies of fresh drinking water starting to dwindle, a solution to this problem is becoming ever more necessary.

On March 11, 2011, the world witnessed one of the worst nuclear disasters. The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was hit by a tsunami generated by a powerful 9.1 earthquake off the coast of Sendai, Japan. The Tohoku earthquake triggered an automatic shutdown of the fission reactions at the power plant, but the tsunami destroyed the emergency generators that provide cooling for the reactors.

Our insatiable need for energy is frequently met through the use of fossil fuels. The impact of this reliance on our climate is now becoming clear, as is the need for a realistic alternative to power our future.

In the mountains on the edge of the Sahara desert in Southwest Morocco, families are leaving their villages due to severe drought conditions which have left the local population struggling to survive.

Some countries lead the way when it comes to renewable energy, and Iceland is definitely one of them. The country already runs on 100% renewable energy, with the majority coming from geothermal sources and hydroelectric dams. Researchers there are also working on new ways to harness energy from the strong Icelandic winds that are a feature of the island.

In our ever more connected world, user generated content (UGC) has an increasingly important role to play in many aspects of our lives. Countless people now tweet, blog and vlog their way through life, logging a vast amount of data as they do so.

The environmental impact of oil spills is immense, and scientists are always looking for better ways to minimize this. Currently, for oil spills in open waters, one of the most commonly used methods is to carry out what is known as ‘in-situ burning’. This involves burning off the oil from the surface of the ocean before it has a chance to sink or move with the ocean currents and cause a huge amount of ecological damage over a large area.

The future of humankind is dependent on the ability to overcome one of the greatest challenges it is currently facing: sustainability. Whilst the challenge is clear, the path to a successful sustainable food system is not. One question is to what degree technological development can influence the food production chain.

The need for reliable energy production worldwide is growing at a rapid rate, with it being estimated that by 2050, our global energy needs will have doubled. This comes at a time when our reliance on fossil fuels is being tested as it becomes more apparent that these are not a sustainable source of energy for the future.

The power and destruction wreaked by hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons the world over is well known, but did you know that the floods caused by these massive weather systems are the number one cause of death by natural disaster in the world? Their scale even outstrips earthquakes and volcanoes due in part, to their ability to affect a huge area.

Disaster management is usually based on protection and restoration. Protection is achieved by providing spare resources in advance, while restoration aims at finding network resources by reusing failed network components, in order to convey lost traffic. In parallel, standby systems are used in an emergency, like in the case of earthquakes. A transportable terrestrial station of a satellite communication system is such an example.