Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse 

Betelgeuse (/ˈbiːtəldʒuːz/ or /ˈbɛtəldʒuːz/),[1] also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Orionis (α Orionis, α Ori), is the eighth brightest star in the night sky and second brightest in the constellation of Orion. Distinctly reddish, it is a semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between 0.2 and 1.2, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. Betelgeuse is one of three stars which make up the Winter Triangle and marks the center of the Winter Hexagon. The star's name is thought to be derived from the Arabic Yad al-Jauzā' meaning "the Hand of al-Jauzā'", i.e. Orion, with mistransliteration into medieval Latin leading to the first character y being misread as a b.
The star is classified as a red supergiant of spectral type M2Iab and is one of the largest and most luminous known stars. If it were at the center of the Solar System its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, possibly to the orbit of Jupiter and beyond, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Estimates of its mass are poorly constrained, but have recently ranged from 5 to 30 times that of the Sun. Its distance was estimated in 2008 at 640 light-years from Earth, yielding a mean absolute magnitude of about −6.02. Less than 10 million years old, Betelgeuse has evolved rapidly due to its high mass. Having been ejected from its birthplace in the Orion OB1 Association—which includes the stars in Orion's Belt—this crimson runaway has been observed moving through the interstellar medium at a supersonic speed of 30 km/sec, creating a bow shock over 4 light-years wide. Currently in a late stage of stellar evolution, the supergiant is expected to proceed through its life cycle before exploding as a type II supernova within the next million years.

Betelgeuse was the first star (after the Sun) to have the angular size of its photosphere measured, in 1920. Since then, researchers have used telescopes with different technical parameters to measure the stellar giant, often with conflicting results. Studies since 1990 have produced an angular diameter (apparent size) ranging from 0.043 to 0.056 arcseconds, an incongruity largely caused by the star's perceived tendency to periodically change shape. Due to limb darkening, variability, and angular diameters that vary with wavelength, many of the star's properties are not yet known with any certainty. Adding to the computational challenges, the surface of Betelgeuse is obscured by a complex, asymmetric envelope roughly 250 times the size of the star, caused by colossal mass loss. Possible stellar companions orbiting within this circumstellar nebula may also contribute to the star's enigmatic behavior

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grey Cup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

        Grey Cup

Awarded for Winning the

Canadian Football League championship
Country Canada
First awarded 1909
Currently held by BC Lions
Official website greycup.cfl.ca

The Grey Cup (French: La Coupe Grey) is the name of both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is contested between the winners of the CFL's East and West Divisional playoffs and is one of Canadian television's largest annual sporting events. The Toronto Argonauts have 15 championships, more than any other team. The defending champions are the BC Lions. The 2012 game, to be played in Toronto, will be the 100th Grey Cup.

The trophy was commissioned in 1909 by the Earl Grey, then Canada's governor general, who originally hoped to donate it for the country's senior amateur hockey championship. After the Allan Cup was donated for that purpose, Grey instead made his trophy available as the national championship of Canadian football. The trophy has a silver chalice attached to a large base on which the names of all winning teams, players and executives are engraved. The Grey Cup has been broken on several occasions, stolen twice and held for ransom. It survived a 1947 fire that destroyed numerous artifacts housed in the same building.

The Grey Cup was first won by the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. Play was suspended from 1916 to 1918 due to the First World War and in 1919 due to a rules dispute. The game has typically been contested in an east versus west format since the 1920s. Traditionally held on a Sunday at the end of November, the Grey Cup has been played in inclement weather at times, including the 1950 "Mud Bowl," in which a player reportedly came close to drowning in a puddle, the 1962 "Fog Bowl," when the final nine minutes of the game had to be postponed to the following day due to a heavy fog, and the 1977 "Ice Bowl," contested on the frozen-over artificial turf at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The Edmonton Eskimos formed the Grey Cup's longest dynasty, winning five consecutive championships from 1978 to 1982. Competition for the trophy has been exclusively between Canadian teams, except for a three-year period from 1993 to 1995 when a brief expansion into the United States resulted in the Baltimore Stallions winning the 1995 championship.

Clean energy for tomorrow

Clean energy for tomorrow

Paula Dobriansky

The world needs affordable and clean energy to fuel economic growth, development, and democracy without harming the environment. The United States is confronting this challenge with transformational technologies, creativity of entrepreneurs, and support for local initiatives in the developing world.

Paula Dobriansky is Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs.

Ensuring access to ample, affordable, clean, and sustainable sources of energy is unquestionably one of the greatest challenges facing the modern world. The U.S. government and America's private sector and nongovernmental organizations are confronting it by building on a long tradition of clean energy research to develop transformational technologies that will reduce our reliance on oil and have far-reaching benefits for the entire world.

By embracing the energy challenge, the United States is working to promote energy security, reduce poverty, reduce harmful air pollution, and address climate change. These efforts often strengthen self-governing societies by building a culture of democracy at the grassroots level.

The energy Challenge

Rarely does a day pass without an energy-related issue making the headlines. Whenever world leaders meet, energy is an important and urgent topic of discussion. From the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to the 2005 Gleneagles Group of Eight (G8) Summit to the 2005-2007 energy cycle of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, energy is front and center.

And for good reason. Supply disruptions and rising prices loom large in day-to-day decisions about how we fuel our vehicles, heat our homes, and power our businesses. What's more, approximately 2 billion people—nearly one-third of the world's population—lack access to the modern energy services that are essential for bringing schools into the 21st century, driving industry, moving water, and boosting crop production, as well as for lighting, heating, and cooling health facilities.

The integrated goals of energy security and poverty alleviation are also inextricably linked with the need to reduce harmful air pollution and address climate change. The World Health Organization estimates that 4,400 people die every day from indoor air pollution, much of which is associated with unhealthy cooking and heating practices.

Developing clean and Affordable energy Technologies

The United States believes that the best way to promote energy security and help nations develop, while protecting the environment and improving public health, is to promote clean and affordable energy technologies. We will need a diversified approach that includes conventional, advanced, and renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies.

The U.S. government, frequently in partnership with the private sector, is pursuing both domestically and internationally a suite of technologies that should be incrementally deployed by the second half of this century. These include new biofuels from nonfood crops; clean coal technology; commercialization of plug-in hybrid autos; hydrogen fuel cell technology; more efficient, proliferation-resistant nuclear systems; and fusion technology. And these are just the highlights.

In his January 2006 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush outlined a strategy to reduce America's dependence on oil. The president's Advanced energy Initiative proposes a 22 percent increase in funding for clean energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy. This includes greater investment in solar and wind technologies, zero-emission coal-fired power plants, clean nuclear technology, and ethanol.

It is important that we not only develop clean energy technologies but also work to make them more affordable and accessible. That is why the U.S. government has spent more than $11.7 billion since 2001 to develop alternative energy sources. This funding has contributed to a dramatic reduction in the cost of renewable energy. As the costs of conventional energy rise, the private investment community is responding. In 2005, we saw $44 billion of new capital investment in renewable energy technologies in the electricity sector. Renewables now comprise approximately 20 to 25 percent of global power sector investment.

As we strive to develop new sources of energy, we are also working hard to reduce our energy consumption. A leading example of this effort is energy Star, a U.S. government-backed program that helps businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency. With the help of energy Star, Americans saved enough energy in 2005 alone to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 23 million cars—all while saving $12 billion on their utility bills, or 4 percent of the United States' total annual electricity demand.

Disseminating Technologies Through Public-Private Partnerships

Multi-stakeholder partnerships with governments, civil society, and the private sector are critical to addressing the energy challenge. The United States participates in a broad spectrum of partnerships, with groups ranging from small American nongovernmental organizations building and demonstrating the use of simple solar cookers in African refugee camps to broader regional alliances such as the recently launched Asia-Pacific Partnership on clean Development and Climate. This voluntary partnership with Australia, China, Japan, India, and South Korea—countries that together with the United States represent over 50 percent of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions—has as its goal the accelerated deployment of cleaner, more efficient technologies and the meeting of partners' respective national pollution reduction, energy security, and climate change objectives. The Asia-Pacific Partnership will engage stakeholders from key economic sectors as full partners in addressing clean development and climate issues in an integrated manner.

In order to foster public-private alliances, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created the Global Development Alliance in 2001. Through this innovative program, USAID has funded programs with nearly 400 alliances, with more than $1.4 billion in government funding leveraging more than $4.6 billion in partner resources.

The ultimate measure of the partnerships' success is whether they deliver concrete, on-the-ground results. When we talk about measurable results, a really positive story is emerging from some of the partnerships launched almost four years ago at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. One example is the Partnership for clean Fuels and Vehicles, one of the four performance-based, market-oriented partnerships under President Bush's clean energy Initiative, a multifaceted approach to addressing access to energy and improving energy efficiency and environmental quality. In 2002, leaded gasoline was used in all but one country in sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of 2005, with the assistance of the Partnership for clean Fuels and Vehicles, all 49 sub-Saharan African countries had stopped refining and importing leaded gasoline. This change will have a significant health impact on many of the 733 million people living in these countries.

The United States is committed to transparent reporting on the partnerships in which we participate. Toward that end, we have created a Web site—www.SDP.gov—to provide continuously updated information on U.S. sustainable development partnership efforts.

Building Effective Policy and Regulatory Frameworks
One of the keys to disseminating clean-energy technologies is ensuring the development of markets to receive them. Effective policy and regulatory frameworks at the local and national levels are absolutely necessary to encourage the level of private sector investment that will be needed in the coming decades.

The U.S. government is making significant progress to build capacity throughout the developing world. From our work on providing reliable energy services in poor slum areas in India to setting rules for power trading in Southern Africa to improved public participation in energy sector decision making globally, we are working with developing country ministries, utilities, and end-users to build the kind of institutional and market structures that will encourage investment in the energy sector.

The United States is also proud to work with its G8 colleagues and a number of other partners on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The EITI supports improved governance in resource-rich countries through the full publication and verification of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas, and mining.

Fostering Democratic Habits at the Grassroots Level

Increasing access to modern, clean, healthy, and efficient energy services can help lift people out of poverty and protect the environment. Perhaps equally important, the very act of providing energy services offers tremendous opportunities for communities to come together to learn and practice the fine art of democratic decision making.

The roots of strong democracies reach much deeper than the act of voting, resting on a foundation of social cohesion and participatory institutions. For the individual rural villager or urban slum dweller, the quest for energy services hinges on whether or not the institutions that serve the community are accountable to their constituency. Far too often, citizens' needs are not fully incorporated into political decisions about who gets what, when, where, and how.

A number of innovative electrification initiatives across the globe are addressing this problem by fostering local community structures that can bridge the gap between households and service providers. For example, USAID supported an alliance in Ahmedabad, India, in which local nongovernmental organizations served as intermediaries, assisting slum dwellers with financing and acquiring the appropriate documentation regarding land ownership to make them eligible for legal electricity service. The results are impressive. In the pilot project, 820 households were upgraded from illegal and unreliable service to regularized electricity. The utility is now rolling out the program to an additional 115,000 poor urban households. In Salvador, Brazil, the utility COELBA has hired local "community agents" to work with the local citizens and community leaders to identify and resolve problems, as well as to provide education on energy conservation practices. Thus far, COELBA has electrified more than 200,000 households. Building on this success, USAID and the U.S. energy Association are supporting a South-South exchange between COELBA and Angolan electric utility EDEL.

By involving community intermediaries in electrification efforts, these programs are strengthening democratic habits at the grassroots level. They build trust, form social capital, and allow people to voice their concerns. In so doing, they not only connect customers to electricity but also enable citizens to learn what it means to participate in democratic processes. This experience and these newly formed skills can easily be applied to other aspects of social and political life, ultimately contributing to a stronger, more robust, and more secure democratic culture.

Meeting the Challenge

The United States is pursuing a clean energy future that rises to the significant challenge before us. Our approach draws upon the best scientific research, harnesses the power of markets, fosters the creativity of entrepreneurs, and works with the developing world to meet our dual aspirations for vibrant economies and a clean environment.

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