Acid Bit

By Shawn Wilson

 The Environment is always a hot topic these days, more specifically, global warming.

It seems everyone from scientists, politicians and the media have their view and opinion on what global warming really is and what it is doing to our planet. One thing is consistent throughout - it’s a way to get the public’s attention. We are warned about the dangers of what global warming does and how we are responsible for it.

I for one do no doubt that if we take responsibility for our own waste that the world would be a better place to live in. No arguments there. What I am not convinced of is that ‘we’ are responsible for the rise in temperature that is causing “global warming”. I have read countless of published data wherein scientists vehemently disagree as to who the culprit is.

Some scientists agree that it is all part of the natural evolution of things and there is nothing we can do to prevent or stop Mother Nature from evolving at her own pace.

Others scientists, which are the ones that politicians and the media seem to focus on, who are also in the minority I might add, preach that we are responsible for the raising temperatures across the globe due to fossil fuels, garbage waste and debris; and then finally the remaining scientific groups who are sit on the fence because the have not gathered sufficient information in order to come to a proper consensus. It’s enough to drive anyone mad.

The unfortunate thing throughout all of this is that politicians have been using it as a ploy to get votes where otherwise there would have been none. It has turned into a vicious game and the media join in playing on the negativity surrounding the issue.

The government of course monopolizes this issue by quasi convincing the public that they have single handedly saved us from certain ‘doom’.

Unfortunately, perhaps the real truth of what exactly ‘global warming’ is, is hidden beneath all the lies, exaggerations, falsehoods and misrepresentations.

One cannot know for certain what the true explanation of global warming is, we can only continue to gather information and make informed decisions as to what and where the problem truly lies. Studies are still being conducted as to the nature of this phenomenon called global warming and we may not have conclusive hard evidence until many, many years from now.

The danger now lies with the probability that global warming being blamed on humanity to its exclusivity and will only encourage politicians and government groups to stake their claim even deeper into the unsuspecting public and gaining control over them.

This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where internet dating is always free. Datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.

The Troll A - A Record Breaking Gas Platform
By Patrick Omari

 Rising out of the North Sea where it takes a lashing from some of the roughest waters on the planet, the Troll A platform is one of the largest and most complex engineering projects in the world and, when it was towed into place in 1996, became the largest structure ever to be made and stands in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest offshore gas platform.

For any fan of engineering feats, the Troll A platform is something to admire. Even from afar it’s scale is jaw-dropping. This natural gas platform in the Troll gas field has an overall height of 472 metres. Put into context; that’s 148 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower and some sixty metres taller than the Word Trade Centre stood before it was destroyed. The construction involved 100,000 tonnes of steel - enough for 15 Eiffel Towers - and 245,000m3 of concrete, that’s the equivalent of 215,000 foundations for usual houses.

Of its 472 metres, the platform stands 303 metres below the surface of the sea. As each of the four legs of the platform are subjected to huge amounts of pressure - especially at the bottom - the construction method had to ensure that the concrete would be flawless, if it wasn’t the consequences would be disastrous. Accordingly, the legs are made up of over 1 metre-thick steel reinforced slip-formed concrete. This means that the concrete was formed in one continuous pour to mean there was no seams or cracks and each of the legs is a mathematically joined composite of conical cylinders flaring out to larger dimensions at the top and bottom.

Each of the Troll A’s mammoth-like legs are joined by a reinforced concrete box interconnecting the legs. This “chord shortener” serves as vital a purpose as the thickness and reinforcement of the concrete. As the Troll A is constantly hit by waves of varying size and force it’s structure is subjected to resonance. Sustained exposure to a certain resonance can crumble even the thickest of structures, as evinced by the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington in 1940. The concrete box that connects the Troll A’s legs dampens out the resonances by returning the legs’ natural frequencies.

A structure worthy of admiration, the Troll A was built by Norwegian contractors with work commencing on the base in July 1991. The deck was constructed separately and were joined in 1995 when the base was partially submerged - the only way to get the deck atop the giant legs. In an operation that took seven days, the platform was towed more than 200 kilometers out to the Troll field before being fixed to the sea floor with each leg using a group of 40 metre tall vacuum-anchors to keep it in place.

The purpose of all this awe-inspiring engineering? Natural gas. The gas rises through 40 wells to be exported through a series of pipes at over 2,000 miles-per-hour. That’s a lot of gas at a high speed from a structure that weighs 656,000 tons with new gas compressors scheduled to further increase production volume from Troll A.

atrick is an expert travel researcher and writer currently researching Manchester Airport Parking, Manchester Airport Hotels and Manchester Airparks

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Prehistoric Extractions In The News
By Aydan Corkern

 I’m sure that you have, during some time your life, heard about some group of people finding some prehistoric fossil. Depending on the location or the size of the object, it could take months or even years to extract this piece of history. They will want to be able to take it out of this area in one piece.

They found whole animals frozen in ice from the Ice Age. This extraction took them years to complete because of the size and weight. They had to bring in special machines to remove the chunk of ice that would have had to been done without breaking the massive chunk of ice. Then they had to find a way to move it to a place where it could be looked at where the scientists wouldn’t be out in the cold.

These people doing the extractions had to withstand temperatures so cold that they couldn’t be out in the weather too long because they would be overcome by the cold. They would have to put themselves in danger not only with the weather but also because of the dangerous animals that might be in the area.

In other situations they might find whole ancient cities that have lain underground for centuries. Then you have the tombs in Egypt, and you might have heard of the tombs in Mexico. We have even had extractions here as well. Most of these have been sites of historic fights or old Indian villages. The biggest area has to do with the American Indians of the Great Basin of North America. We have learned much from these sites.

These sites could tell the people that are doing the work how these people lived and even how they died. They could tell by what they found how long this village had been at this location and could pinpoint the time of its demise.

We have scientists that go all over the world for the sole purpose of looking for old fossils and extracting these things out of the ground. The more they find the more the government will give them in grant money to keep this dig going. Some of these digs have been very well known and some of them you will never hear about. If you have ever been in a museum almost everything that you might see is from some extraction of one kind or the other.

Aydan Corkern is a writer of many topics, visit some of her sites, like

water damage and water damage restoration.

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