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Showing posts with the label fossil fuels

Beautiful pink snow in the Italian Alps heralds another environmental catastrophe

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An alarming, yet beautiful new phenomena, has gripped both Alpine tourists and scientists alike - the appearance of pink snow on the Presena glacier in Italy.  Known as the “giant of the alps”, Presena sits 3,069 metres above sea level and is described as a paradise for all those who love nature, history and mountain sports. Situated on the border between Val di Sole and Valle Camonica, between Trentino and Lombardy, the glacier is part of the Presanella mountain group. A type of algae usually found in Greenland has started to grow there - and it’s turning the glacier pink. The plant, known as Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, is present in Greenland's so-called Dark Zone, where the ice is also melting. Despite its rosy appearance, pink snow is not good news on the climate change front. Usually, ice reflects over 80 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere. As the ice changes colour, it loses the ability to reflect heat, meaning the glaciers are starting to melt fast...

UK's National Grid goes coal-free for the longest period since the Industrial Revolution

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Coal has not been used to generate power for 60 days Partly due to a collapse in demand during the Coranavirus lockdown and a greater emphasis on using solar power, the UK National Grid managed to take coal plants off the network on April 10th and to avoid bringing them back online in Britain since. Britain continues to phase it out, with two of Britain’s oldest coal-fired power stations having closed at the end of March this year, leaving just three left on the mainland. This is a major shift from 10 years ago when 40% of the nation's energy came from coal and only 3% came from renewables such as wind and solar power. In 2020, the UK has the biggest offshore wind industry in the world, with the 659MW Walney Extension the world’s biggest operational offshore wind farm to date. Located in the Irish Sea near Cumbria and covering an area equal to 20,000 football pitches, it is designed to operate for 25 years and supplies enough electricity to power 590,000 UK homes. Over...