March 2007 | Page - 7
[<<Prev] 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 [Next>>]
 

South Korean Firm Develops Oil Spill Absorbing Sponge Ball

A South Korean research team has recently developed a material that can clean oil from the surface of the water four to five times better than the current method. The material is made of fibres from the Kapok tree, which is found throughout Southeast Asia, woven into a sponge ball the size of a baseball.

A senior researcher at the state-run Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute said the oil can be squeezed out of the sponge ball easily, and both the oil and the fibres can be used again; the fibres can be reused up to seven times.

This appears to be a significantly better alternative as compared to the current non-woven fabrics used that cannot be reused and must be disposed of by burning which in turn leads to secondary pollution. In addition, the newly developed sponge balls are not only environmentally friendly but also economically efficient since Kapok is much cheaper than cotton.		  
US NAVY May Depoly Anti-Terrorism Sea Mammmals
Water Scarcity May Get Tankers Shipping Drinking Water

Among the many climatic changes predicted by scientists studying global warming, a primary concern is water scarcity, which could impact up to 3.2 billion people worldwide by the year 2100. The World Water Council (WWC) in Marseille, France, announced in a conference on 2nd February 2007 that there is a real prospect that tankers could one day shuttle fresh drinking water instead of oil between countries.

In fact, exporting water by sea is already happening between various countries, for instance, between France and Algeria, Turkey and Israel, and London’s Thames Water has already investigated bringing water supplies by tankers from Scotland and Norway to solve emergency shortages due to droughts. In July 2005, one of our managed chemical tankers, M.T. PANAM SOL, also transported 2.5 million gallons of fresh water from Philadelphia, USA, to the drought stricken Bermuda.

While the WWC is encouraging countries with abundant fresh water supplies like Norway, Russia and New Zealand to export fresh drinking water more regularly, experts believe that single-hulled oil tankers, which must stop transporting oil by 2015, could then be used for transporting water instead.

In a notice published in the US Federal Register on 12th February 2007, the US Navy intends to reinforce security levels at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, near Seattle, Washington, home to submarines, ships and laboratories that is potentially vulnerable to attacks by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers.

The alleged preferred option amongst many others is to deploy as many as 30 California sea lions and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins from the San Diego-based Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP).

Reportedly, because of their incredible sonar abilities, dolphins are excellent at patrolling for swimmers and divers. When one of these dolphins detects a person in the water, it drops a beacon; this tells the human interception team where to find the suspicious swimmer. The sea lions on the other hand are trained to carry special cuffs attached to long ropes in their mouths that can be clamped around a rogue swimmer’s leg. The individual can then be reeled in for interrogation.

Purportedly, dolphins are also trained to detect underwater mines and were sent to do this in the Iraqi harbour of Umm Qasr in 2003 while sea lions were used operationally in 1996 to patrol the San Diego Harbour during a Republican convention. The US Navy is now seeking public comment for an Environmental Impact Statement it is preparing on the proposal.
 
ENB History | Home
 March 2007 | Page - 7
[<<Prev] 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 [Next>>]