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SPREAD THE DAMN WORD
(via astarrygreysea)
He’s nicknamed “the 52 hertz whale” because that’s the frequency at which he sings his whale songs (most whales sing at between 15 and 25 hertz). His weird voices seems to have alienated all the other whales; the only people who listen to him are Navy sonar engineers, who have tracked his movements since 1992 using a classified system of submarine-detecting hydrophones. No one has ever seen the 52 hertz whale, and so no one knows why his voice is so high. Scientists speculate that he could be malformed, a “hybrid” between two species of whale, or simply deaf.
3 weeks ago on May 03, 2012 at 02:22pm
3 weeks ago on May 02, 2012 at 03:41pm
This is a very cool potential application for energy storage. Wind energy’s peak is not the same as the energy demand peak. Currently, there are basically two options in regards to this. (This explanation ignores countless other variables, so bear with me.) First, we can use wind power when it’s available and use fossil fuels when wind power is not available. This is a terrible idea, because it essentially asks that fossil fuel plants start and stop their generators in fluctuation with the wind. This adds immense wear on their equipment and lowers efficiency overall. Both of these are bad economically and environmentally. A better option is to keep both sources of energy running all the time, and just lower their individual outputs. This requires employing energy storage of the renewable energy source, in this case wind. That is what these Green Power Islands do. The islands consist of a ring of land surrounding a very deep (usually man-dug) body of water. The wind turbines power pumps that pump the water in this body of water out of the center of the island. When electricity demand is high, water from the surrounding sea is allowed to rush back into the center of the island, driving a turbine generator and converting this kinetic energy into electricity. This energy storage application is about 75% efficient, which is right among the highest energy storage applications that exist today.
3 weeks ago on May 02, 2012 at 01:48pm
