The hands-on drive for sustainable living in Europe
Urban dwellers across the EU are having a say in making their surroundings friendlier to people and the environment.
Urban dwellers across the EU are having a say in making their surroundings friendlier to people and the environment.
Environment
14 hours ago
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Germany's greenhouse gas emissions dropped by one-tenth last year as renewable energy grew in importance, the use of coal and gas diminished and economic pressures weighed on businesses and consumers, official data showed ...
Environment
Mar 15, 2024
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform technologies as diverse as solar panels, in-body medical sensors and self-driving vehicles. But these applications are already pushing today's computers to their ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 4, 2024
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The lack of meaningful action to tackle Britain's cold homes over the last decade has intensified existing inequalities—with many millions of households now at the point of crisis, finds a new report from the UCL Institute ...
Economics & Business
Feb 23, 2024
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University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their collaborators are developing a quick-drying polymeric desiccant that could dehumidify buildings using at least 30% less energy than conventional air-conditioning systems.
Polymers
Feb 22, 2024
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If you happened to be looking at the sky in Europe on a cold night on February 5, 1993, there is a chance you could have seen a dim flash of light. That flash came from a Russian space mirror experiment called Znamya-2.
Astronomy
Jan 12, 2024
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An international team of scientists led by Oregon State University researchers has used a novel 500-year dataset to frame a "restorative" pathway through which humanity can avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 9, 2024
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To limit global warming to 1.5°, the EU's Science Advisory Board on Climate Change recommends that Europe reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 90%–95% by 2040 compared to 1990. Fossil fuels should be phased out as quickly ...
Environment
Jan 3, 2024
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People all around the world traditionally use their new year to embark on a change in lifestyle.
Environment
Dec 27, 2023
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Understanding and addressing the impacts of climate change is one of the most daunting challenges of our time. The complexities of interconnected natural and human systems make it extremely difficult to identify meaningful ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 24, 2023
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In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 Exajoules (= 5 x 1020 J) with 80-90% derived from the combustion of fossil fuels. This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 16 TW (= 1.585 x 1013 W). Not all of the world's economies track their energy consumption with the same rigor, and the exact energy content of a barrel of oil or a ton of coal will vary with quality.
Most of the world's energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth - some of that energy has been preserved as fossil energy, some is directly or indirectly usable e.g. via wind, hydro or wave power. The term solar constant is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area, measured on the outer surface of Earth's atmosphere, in a plane perpendicular to the rays. The solar constant includes all types of solar radiation, not just visible light. It is measured by satellite to be roughly 1366 watts per square meter, though it fluctuates by about 6.9% during a year - from 1412 W/m2 in early January to 1321 W/m2 in early July, due to the Earth's varying distance from the sun, and by a few parts per thousand from day to day. For the whole Earth, with a cross section of 127,400,000 km², the total energy rate is 1.740×1017 W, plus or minus 3.5%. This 174 PW is the total rate of solar energy received by the planet; about half, 89 PW, reaches the Earth's surface.
The estimates of remaining worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ (1 YJ = 1024J) and the available nuclear fuel such as uranium exceeding 2.5 YJ. Fossil fuels range from 0.6-3 YJ if estimates of reserves of methane clathrates are accurate and become technically extractable. Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA