Group items tagged

The Financial Times is delighted to be running our 2008 seasonal appeal, launched this week in support of WaterAid, which helps some of the world's poorest people get access to safe water and sanitation.\n\nIn recent weeks, FT reporters and photographers have taken a close look at WaterAid's operations on the ground in some of the least developed parts of Africa and Asia. They will report on the many aspects of its work over the next month in both the Weekend FT and the weekday paper.

Dr. Webber explains the intricate and increasingly vital links between energy and water, both in the United States, and the world.

Next month an Australian-led coalition is expected to unveil a project to build experimental water-­purification reactors in drought-plagued ­northeastern Australia.

Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA) and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) announced that they will set up a joint venture to produce high voltage cables. The plant will be located in Jebel Ali and will be operational next year. Annual output will be 30,000 tonnes of high voltage cable, supplying the local market and GCC countries. The investment will amount to Dh500 million (US$136 million) and is expected to break even in the third year of the project.

While older municipalities across Canada are busy replacing lead distribution water supply pipes that have been in the ground since the last century, others are having to replace pipes made of polybutylene (PB) that were installed as recently as 25 years ago. The polybutylene plastic service pipes were installed in the 1970s and 1980s to connect street mains to the home as a cheaper alternative to copper piping. However, the polybutylene pipes were subject to collapse, and over time have become brittle, are cracking and leaking water.

It's about to get that much easier to create a tempest in a teapot. Conventional wisdom holds that a watched pot never boils and while "never" might be an exaggeration, most of us can agree that it takes longer than we'd like. However, researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered that by coating the inside of a pot with a microscopic layer of copper nanotubes-which under appropriate magnification make the surface of the cooking vessel look hairy-they can increase the efficiency of energy transfer from the pot to the water it holds by an order of magnitude.