Shell postpones plans for Arctic drilling

Shell oil company announced today that it will postpone the drilling in the Arctic of Alaska, scheduled for later this year, reducing at the same time, the overall investment in exploration in € 9 billion ($ 29.8 billion), from €46 billion to € 37 billion (r $ 152 billion to $ 122 billion).

According to the new CEO, Ben van Beurden, disinvestment has against the backdrop of a series of initiatives that depict the "loss of momentum" of the company. Like Green Savers stepped forward last week, Shell presented profits below the expected in 2013 â€" a reduction of 71%.

Shell's decision to postpone drilling in Alaska was received with enthusiasm by environmentalists. "It's not nice to say it," explained van Beurden, "but the lack of a clear path [in this case] means that I'm not prepared to commit more resources to the Alaska drilling in 2014".

According to the activist Charlie Kronick, of Greenpeace Arctic, Shell has spent "enormous amounts of time and money on a project that added nothing except a bad reputation and incompetence".  "The only reasonable decision was van Beurden, which decided to decrease the company's losses and fend off future plans to drill the Arctic remote".

Foto:  zieak / Creative Commons

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Portuguese company develops software that allows you to detect water leaks and analyze consumption

ISA-Intelligent Sensing Anywhere â€" has developed a new software that allows the managing bodies of water supply systems to detect leaks and analyze consumption automatically.

In addition to detailed information about the consumptions in each zone and measuring and control of clients that are associated with that same zone â€" telemetry systems solutions have enabled-, Kisense Water allows you to detect leaks and allows the crossing and automatic analysis of the information collected and intelligent analysis of flow rates, refer to ISA said in a statement.

Currently, "water losses and consumption not invoiced represent a significant proportion of the water consumed in the networks and, consequently a troubling cost for managing entities of waters", reads the document. The average losses in national network amounts to 30%.

In this way, the software developed by the national technology, with headquarters in Coimbra, allows to fund managers by reducing the costs associated with the monitoring of unauthorized uses, reducing the costs associated with the reading of counters and the improvement of the management of parks of counters and customer relations.

Foto:  nucce / Creative Commons

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Warmer seas are becoming smaller fish

In the last four decades, the North sea species have decreased in size approximately 29%, and scientists believe that rising temperatures may be the factor that is to trigger the declining size of the fish.

The researchers concluded that the maximum size of the haddock, herring, halibut, flounder, whiting and pout declined about 29 percent over the past 38 years, while temperatures in the North Sea have increased by between one to two degrees Celsius.

Scientists at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, also indicate that the availability of food and fisheries increase can be plausible factors for the decrease in size. But, the decrease "synchronized" in size several fish species lead researchers to believe that the increase in temperature of water is the factor which is making the smaller fish.

"Our analysis indicates that most species of fish examined experienced a synchronized size reduction over the period analyzed," said Alan Baudron, researcher who led the study. "What's interesting is that the decrease was observed in a wide range of species have different diets, live the different depths and experience different levels of mortality caused by fishing," he adds.

According to investigators, referred to by the Guardian, warmer waters make the fish grow faster, which makes it grow so much. "The period of maximum size reduction coincided with years when temperatures of the waters of the North Sea have increased," said Baudron.

Foto: Derek Keats / Creative Commons

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Italy: Boulder falls on top of the mountain and destroy property with 300 years

The nature of these things: a giant boulder of 4,000 cubic meters fell from the top of a mountain in Tramin, Northern Italy, destroying a property with 300 years â€" The Freisingerhof. The video of the destruction was captured by a drone and it was him we pulled photos that you can see below.

According to the South Tyrol News, rock destroyed a barn, a House and several vineyards, a prejudice of millions of euros. The losses were confirmed by Baron Philipp von Hohenbuhel, director of the land â€" which is owned by the Servite order of the Catholic Church.

The Boulder just stopped at a second rock, which has fallen on another occasion. A third rock will have fallen to the other two. The rocks didn't hit nobody, but the area has been evacuated, since geologists worry that other boulders might fall in the next few days.

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Young polar Explorer crossed Antarctica to draw attention to climate change

Parker Liautaud established, in 2013, the record for the fastest person to walk unaided to the South Pole. The 19-year-old student of French and American descent, traveled in 18 days the approximately 505 kilometres that separate the coast of Antarctica from the pole, besting the previous record achieved by the Norwegians Ottar Haldorsen and Jacob Melan in almost four days.

However, this young Columbus had an approach quite different from the other explorers. When he began his journey, one of the objectives was to collect about 2,500 samples for that climate change can be studied by academic institutions, since the primary objective of their adventure at the South Pole was to raise awareness of climate change.

Liautaud started his journey on December 6, 2013 Ross Ice Shelf and reached the South Pole on Christmas Eve. The young student of Yale University was accompanied by Doug Stoup. The two explorers pulled sleds material with about 80 kilos each, facing temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius.

"What we wanted to do was make a compelling story in which people could be a part of a region that is to be significantly impacted by climate change," said the young man told Reuters.

Liautaud expects the expedition can inform and convince the public about the real dangers of climate change. "There is the awareness that there is a consensus among the scientific community about the existence of global warming", indicates the Explorer. "People are not only divided on the issue as they don't speak about the problem," he adds.

According to the Huffington Post, the samples collected by Liautaud are being analyzed by a research institution in New Zealand who is studying the changes in the composition of the soil and ice that could better clarify the climate changes in the region in question

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Google wants 100% renewable energy

Google continues its strategy of having, in the medium term, 100% of their electricity supplied by renewable sources. The last chapter in this epic was a recent agreement with the Swedish Eolus Vind wind company, which will provide power for 29 turbines located in southern Sweden, a total of 59 megawatts over the next 10 years.

The farms are located in different locations, to decrease the risk of breaks in electricity supply, and will be activated in 2015.

At the end of last year, says Business Week, Google announced an investment of €55 million (US $ 180 million) in a wind farm of 182 megawatts in Texas, the United States, which should start at the end of the year. All the power generated here will be used by the information technology giant.

"We are always looking for ways to increase the amount of renewable energy we use," explained the director-general of the Google infrastructure, François Sterin, which in recent years has spent much of his time researching the subject of renewable.

Google has already spent more than €730 million (US $ 2.4 billion) in investments in wind and solar energy, a total of 2 gigawatts generated â€" enough to electrify 500 thousand American homes for a year.

In August, 33% of the energy used by Google came from renewable sources, but the American giant does not yet have a date for the end of this sustainable project.

Foto:  Charles Ovens / Creative Commons

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New species of freshwater dolphin discovery in Brazil is already in danger

The scientific community has discovered a new species of freshwater dolphins, the first in almost 100 years. Called "Araguaia", name of the river where it was discovered, it was the fifth species of freshwater dolphins to be discovered.

This species diverged from other freshwater fish that can be found in South America for more than two million year, having been the first to be discovered since 1918. Scientists estimate that there are only about 1,000 copies of the species inhabiting the river Araguaia says Plos One.

The freshwater dolphins are quite rare. Of the five extant species, three are critically endangered and researchers consider that the Araguaia dolphins should be included in this list. The closest this new species Dolphin is the pink dolphin or the Amazon, which is considered to be the most intelligent species of freshwater dolphins.

Scientists indicate that there are some differences in the number of teeth and the native species of the Araguaia River is smaller, but the main differences in relation to other freshwater dolphins were found in genes.

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