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Potential for floating solar

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As installations of utility-scale solar power continue to expand around the world, there is the issue of where to put them.  They do take up considerable amounts of space and, in many places, available land is at a premium.

An alternative to taking up available land with solar panels is to deploy them on the surfaces of lakes and reservoirs.  A study by researchers at Bangor and Lancaster Universities in the UK calculated the potential electrical output for floating photovoltaic installation on nearly 68,000 lakes and reservoirs around the world.  The lakes and reservoirs selected were no more than 6 miles from a population center, were not in a protected area, and didn’t dry up and didn’t freeze for more than six months each year.  The calculations were based on covering just 10% of the surface area of the bodies of water.

The calculations were evaluated country-by-country.  Five countries could meet their entire electricity needs by floating installations including Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.  Many countries, mostly in Africa, South America, and Central Asia, could get between 40% and 70% of their electricity this way.  Most European countries could only meet a few percent of their electricity needs from floating solar, but even that could be significant. 

There are other benefits to floating solar apart from freeing up land.  The panels stay cooler, making them more efficient, and reservoirs lose less water through evaporation and the growth of algal blooms is reduced because there is less light reaching the water.

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Some countries could meet their total electricity needs from floating solar panels, research shows

Photo, posted November 25, 2015, courtesy of Smabs Sputzer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Weather Disasters On The Rise | Earth Wise

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It seems like the news is always filled with stories about storms, heatwaves, drought, and forest fires.  This is because these things are happening with unprecedented frequency.

According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, weather disasters have become five times more common since 1970, in large part a result of climate change.  Extreme weather, climate, and water events are increasing and are becoming more frequent and severe in many parts of the world.

Between 1970 and 2019, there were more than 11,000 reported disasters attributed to weather, resulting in over 2 million deaths and $3.64 trillion dollars in economic losses.

Storms and floods were the most prevalent disasters.  The five costliest disasters ever are all hurricanes that have struck the United States over the past 20 years.

Droughts accounted for the greatest number of human losses, with severe droughts in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Sudan responsible for 650,000 deaths.

About the only positive news in the report was that even as disasters have grown more prevalent, deaths have declined, dropping from about 50,000 a year in the 1970s to fewer than 20,000 in the 2010s.  This is a result of better early warning systems.  We have gotten better at saving lives.  But early warning systems are woefully insufficient in much of the developing world, where more than 90% of disaster-related deaths occur.

Of the 77 weather-related disasters that struck between 2015 and 2017, 62 show the influence of human-caused climate change.  With the pace of climate change now accelerating, there are likely to be more frequent catastrophic disasters in the years to come.

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As the Planet Has Warmed, Weather Disasters Have Grown Fivefold, Analysis Shows

Photo, posted September 16, 2021, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Tracking Locust Swarms | Earth Wise

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Plagues of locusts have been reported since the times of the Egyptian pharaohs.  In recent history, there have been desert locust plagues during multiple decades of the 20th century.  Since January, a very large population of locusts gathered in Kenya and has destroyed over 2,000 square miles of pasture and crop land.  Swarms have since reached portions of Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, and South Sudan.  Apart from East Africa, there are locust swarms in Yemen and other Middle East countries and in Pakistan as well.  The current situation continues to represent an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in East Africa.  Locust swarms can range in size from less than half a square mile to hundreds of square miles, each containing 20 to 40 million locusts.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses a powerful air quality model to track the movement and deposition of pollution from wildfires, volcanoes and industrial accidents.  Called the HYSPLIT dispersion model, it has now been refined for the purpose of tracking swarms of locusts.

Because desert locusts are passive fliers that drift with the wind, the model’s high-quality data on wind speed and direction can lead to accurate predictions of where the locusts will go and when.

NOAA is working with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization – the FAO.  The new web application based on HYSPLIT is being used by the FAO to issue forecasts and warnings to affected countries about forthcoming waves of locust swarms.  Such forecasts enable local officials to conduct aerial spraying to reduce the impact of desert locusts which can destroy grains, grasses and other greens that are life-sustaining foods for entire regions.

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NOAA teams with United Nations to create locust-tracking application

Photo, posted November 20, 2004, courtesy of Niv Singer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)