Tourism and Beyond

Because of worsening economic conditions, travellers are changing their holiday plans for this year, with nearly half saying that they are scaling back, according to the results of a new study.
In a poll of 1,000 UK consumers, it was found that 46 per cent had already scaled back their travel plans due to the recession.

Travel bag

There are indications that concerns about the impact of travel on social and environmental conditions are also changing holiday plans.

Sixty-one per cent of the respondents to the survey indicated that they were intending to find out more about the environmental and social impact of their holidays, and 55 per cent said they would be choosing holiday destinations that could be reached by boat or train, rather than by plane.

Seventy-six per cent of those polled reported that they did not have sufficient information regarding the environmental and social impact of holiday travel to be able to make an informed choice.

It is expected that 2009 will be a difficult year for holiday operators, but those able to match value with social and environmental “values” are likely to fare better, and be better able to ride out the recession, according to Good Business, the corporate responsibility consultancy that commissioned the study.

Good Business founder and CEO Giles Gibbons noted: “With less money in their pockets it seems many holidaymakers plan to look for cheaper alternatives in the UK this year.”

He added: “Some might see this as good news from an environmental perspective, with reductions in things like flights.”

VIA: ASAP

Travel, Uncategorized conditions, economy, environement, real ecology

Bueno, mi primer post bilingüe. A través de MENEAME he visto este post sobre lugares espectaculares del mundo. Por supuesto, como primer lugar, añado mi propia casa

This is my first bilingual post. I have found through MENEAME a post with 10 amazing places of the world. Of course, first of all, my villa in Majorca

1.- HONOR VELL

Casa de vacaciones en la Sierra de Tramuntana de Mallorca.

2.- Ola del desierto en Arizona/Arizona’s desert wave

Arizona guarda muchos secretos, pero quizás entre los más espectaculares, está la llamada “ola del desierto”, una formación rocosa modelada magistralmente por el viento, de tan difícil acceso que incluso quienes viajan a fotografiarla, a veces regresan frustrados por no poder encontrarla.

One of the best kept secrets in Arizona. The “Desert’s Wave” is like a rocky dune modelled by the wind. It is so hard to reach that you have to walk for 3 miles through the desert and climb winding pathes up to 300 feet.

3.- Lago de fuego/Lake of fire

Situado en la inhóspita región de la depresión de Afar, en el noreste de Etiopía, una inusual fuente de luz y calor emerge desde las entrañas de la Tierra: el lago de lava del volcán Erta Ale.

Situated in Afar’s region, NW of Ethiopia, an unusual light and heat font comes up from the center of the Earth: the lava lake of the Erta Ale volcano

4.- Bosque de Piedra, China/Forest of Stone, China

En el condado de Shilin, al sudoeste de China, las rocas parecen brotar de la tierra creando la ilusión de un bosque de piedra.

In Shilin’s County, at SW of China, rocks appear to grow from the ground, like quiet trees.

Para leer más/read more: 101 LUGARES

Travel, majorca arizona, best places in the world, china, fire, holiday homes, real ecology, sand, stone

The ocean harbors abundant energy in the form of wind, waves and sun. All of these could be sampled on something called an Energy Island: a floating rig that drills for renewables instead of petroleum.

The concept is the brainchild of inventor Dominic Michaelis. He was originally unsatisfied with the slow progress in developing ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a process in which cold water is pumped up from the deep ocean to generate electricity.

“Nothing new was happening with OTEC, so I thought why not bring other marine energy technologies on board?” Michaelis said.

The Energy Island that he and his son have designed would have an OTEC plant at its center, but spread across the 2,000-foot-wide (600-meter-wide) platform would also be wind turbines and solar collectors. Additionally, wave energy converters and sea current turbines would capture energy from water moving around the structure.

One of these hexagonally-shaped islands could generate 250 megawatts (enough power for a small city), Michaelis said. Even more power is possible by mooring together several Energy Islands into a small archipelago that could include greenhouses for food, a small harbor for ships and a hotel for tourists.

To attract possible investors, the Energy Island team will present their concept this week at the U.S. China GreenTech Summit in Shanghai.

Running hot and cold

The principle reason to build an Energy Island is to harvest OTEC.

“The advantage of OTEC over other marine energy technologies is that it’s constant, 24 hours a day and all year round,” Michaelis told LiveScience.

This is because it is based not on the sun or the wind or the waves, but on the temperature difference between warm water at the sun-heated surface and cold water in the deep, dark ocean.

The biggest temperature differences can be found in tropical seas, where the surface water is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

This warm water is drawn in from around the Energy Island and used to evaporate a working fluid, which might be seawater or ammonia. The resulting vapor pushes a turbine that produces electricity.

To condense the vapor back to fluid, cold water at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) is pumped up from a half mile below the surface. This condensation creates a pressure drop that helps suck more vapor through the turbine blades.

The same basic process occurs in a coal-fired or nuclear power plant, but the temperature difference between water boilers and cooling towers is much greater than in an OTEC system.

Read the rest of article HerE

real ecology energy islands, oceans, projects, real ecology