Archive for 2007
Loetschberg Tunnel Completed
The Loetschberg Basis Tunnel is completed and the first train rode through it. This tunnel together with the Gotthard tunnel are the two main tunnels through the Alps in Switzerland, connecting the north (Germany) with the south (Italy). The Gotthard tunnel is still under construction and will not be completed for another few more years.
The Loetschberg tunnel is about 35 kilometers long, and will be used for cargo trains putting trucks on the train, and for high speed passenger trains. Cars will still go over the mountains. Before the construction about 1.5 million trucks travelled through Switzerland in north-south direction. After completion, the number is expected to drop to 650,000. Besides these environmental savings, the ride through the tunnel will save time as it is twice as fast as the ride over the mountain and will be cheaper than the truck prices for truck companies
How is this related to water? — As any tunnel they had huge water inflows at various stages of drilling, and there is a pretty neat water collection system in place now for the normally infiltrating groundwater.
In 2003 I was part of a field trip to the south portal in Raron, Switzerland. We saw the drilling machine in action, and the geotechnical lab and the rock-recycling facility.
The ZDF has a movie on it; The news from the tagesschau; The news from the handelsblatt; The news from the NZZ; The news from the independent;
The Amish are Modern
According to the New Scientist, the Amish are very fast in adapting solar power. By now, 80% of the Amish families in the largest Amish community in the world in Ohio, own solar power. Reasons for the quick adoption include:
- safety concerns (gas lamps were a fire hazard)
- legal requirements (transportation code requires horse buggies to be lit)
- remain separated from the rest of American society by not hooking on to the electricity grid
After having lived in close proximity to Mennonites for a few years, and having enjoyed their agricultural products, and missing those products now that they are not available to me anymore, I do acknowledge the importance of such communities. In Waterloo they live peacefully together with the rest of the community, everybody chuckles about their horse buggies, but everybody is delighted by their fine potatoes, their fine produce, and their fine work.
Measuring Rain
Measuring how much rain falls during a given time, the meteorological parameter “rainfall intensity”, is difficult to measure. It gets even more difficult if the goal is to measure the spatial distribution of rainfall, and how it changes over time.
The Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS) will try and use different new remote sensing techniques and proven ground based or air borne techniques such as lidars, radars, precipitation detectors. Obviously over a large are, the Black Forrest in south-west Germany. The german news station ZDF has quite an enthusiastic report on this measurement-campaign and the improvement the scientists will gain for mathematical weather forecasting.
Climate Change and Water-Price-Change
London will be where Porto is now
This interesting and well designed map shows some cities but not at their current geographic location, but at a geographic location that currently has the climate that this city will have in 70 years.
Drinking Water too Expensive in Germany
The German magazine Der Spiegel has reported on may-23 how prices of publicly supplied drinking water vary in Germany. Today the same magazine interviews the economic minister of the province of Hessia on that topic today, and he announces dramatic price cuts.
Another Cool Wave
Another cool picture with a wave:
(via Flickr)
All that climate change discussion is crap!
Well, if somebody’s telling you so, you might get some useful support from the NewScientist. A very nice collection of all the stories, why climate change isn’t happening, why it isn’t man made, why we shouldn’t trust scientists dealing with climate change. And a very nice collection of background information, where the stories come from, what’s the scientific basis and where the myth starts.
More Bottled Water
Chinese Water
This picture shows Xu Jiehua (r), the wife of the detained Chinese environmental activist Wu Yilong, sitting behind water samples collected by Wu Yilong from Chinese urban rivers and lakes. To me this looks more like popsicle-colors and not like drinking water… hopefully popsicle have different constituents though…
Celebrity Water
Some people, I think might fall into the category “celebrities”, seem to fall for anything… H2Om is the world’s first “interactive natural spring water” and is infused with the power of positive energy through words, music, colors, symbols, and you. It’s only $34.95 a case. Your choice of: Perfect Health, Love, Prosperity, Gratitude, Will Power, Joy, or Peace. See here, via here
Again Liquid Gummy Bears
On my recent trip to Albuquerque, I had to find out, that the vitaminwater I recently wrote about, in fact is ubiquitous in supermarkets in New Mexico. Who would have thought? And I’ve noticed a lot of people actually drinking it. My only explanation is “good” marketing…
Water Bottles and Waste
The German magazine Der Spiegel has a feature on the waste produced by consuming water from water bottles instead from the tap. The article references the worldwatch institute, but on their webpage I could find only this, which is probably related. The point of the story is that worldwide sales of bottled water have doubled within only years. All these bottles have significant impact on the world’s waste situation.
Still Water Problems in Europe
The rivers Elbe and Donau in Germany still suffer extreme low water levels, and are partially closed for shipping — a situation unheard of in May.
Italy ended up declaring a state of emergency yesterday, after no rain had fallen since last week
Beginning of the End of Bottled Water
CNN reports on some “evidence” that some parts of society start to realize that bottled water is not the way to go.
Drought Earlier Than Usual in Southern Germany and Italy
The month of April has been exceptionally warm, and there has been exceptionally little precipitation in Germany. The danger of forest fires is extremely high, barbecue stations in the forests around Stuttgart are being closed because the danger of accidentally starting a fire are too high. Generally, vegetation is about four weeks ahead of the average time for flowering. Personally, I was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag without using a tent in early April. I had never done this before. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) has two articles relating to this topic in its issue from April 26th:
- “Italien ruft Wassernotstand aus“: Farmers in the valley of the river Po in northern Italy needed to start irrigating their fields in early April, about 4 weeks earlier than normal, leading to a water level in the river meters below the average. Additionally, water levels in Italy’s northern lakes (Lago di Garda, Lago di Como) are down as well. Decreased water levels in rivers are anticipated to decrease the output of power plants and hence power shortages are expected. The author expects that a state of emergency will be issued early next week if it doesn’t rain until then.
- “Die Angst vor der grossen Duerre“: This article paints a similar picture for southern Germany as for Italy: early beginning of irrigation, decreased yield of agricultural crops,