Tiempo Climate Newswatch

A new study has mapped solar and wind energy sites in developing nations. The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) was organized by the United Nations Environment Programme. "In developing countries all over the world we have removed some of the uncertainty about the size and intensity of the solar and wind resource," said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP executive director. "These countries need greatly expanded energy services to help in the fight against poverty and to power sustainable development."

In Nicaragua, the wind resource assessment demonstrated a far greater potential than previous estimates had suggested. As a result, the Nicaraguan National Assembly passed the Decree on Promotion of Wind Energy 2004 that gives wind-generated electricity priority over other options when fed into electricity grids. The United States Trade and Development Agency and the Inter-American Development Bank have since launched wind energy feasibility studies in Nicaragua.

More information

• ClimateBiz
• ENN

• Country information, SWERA

Sea levels have changed faster than previously believed, according to a new study. Using a new method of dating dead corals, researchers have revealed repeated rises and falls in sea level of 6 to 30 metres over little more than a millennium. "There's never been a record of sea level to show in detail [these] changes," said William Thompson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the study's lead author.

"Sea level is more variable than previously thought over a period between 70,000 and 250,000 years ago," he continued. "Substantial shifts occur over a few thousand years, during both glacial and interglacial periods, with rates of change that exceed estimates of modern sea level rise. Although sea level over the past few thousand years appears to have been relatively stable, this seems to be the exception rather than the rule."

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Background

• Dive News
• Discovery Channel
• Sci-Tech Today

• Changes in Sea Level, IPCC

Researchers in Japan are studying the feasibility of creating a seaweed plantation in the Pacific Ocean to absorb carbon dioxide and produce biofuel. According to Masahiro Notoya of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, "petroleum was originally fossilized seaweed and other creatures. "Therefore, it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air with the help of seaweed and use the seaweed to produce fuel."

The plantation would consist of 100 floating fishing nets in which the seaweed would grow. Each net would be 10 by 10 kilometres in size. and could produce 270,000 tons of seaweed a year. When exposed to heated water vapour, seaweed releases hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases from which methanol and other biofuels can be synthesized.

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Background

• Daily Yomiuri Online

• The Seaweed Site