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tv   Tomorrow Today  Deutsche Welle  November 14, 2022 6:30am-7:01am CET

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i, an increasing number of women in latin america are guessing that are, there needs to stop murdering and depressing us. now, fighting against sexism, violence, and full access to abortion, french or from the street has already proven successful. the opposition is on the rise pads off with my cheese starts november 25th on d w. we need energy for everything we do. but most of our energy still comes from fossil fuels, like coal and oil. a total worldwide switch to renewable energy generated from wind water. and so that power is already possible, but it would take a big investment according to a new study,
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more than 60 trillion euros. new technologies such as floating wind power plants and solar power plants in the alps could accelerate the transition. welcome to to morrow to day d, w. science magazine. wind power is expanding around the globe. china has the highest number of wind turbines followed by the united states, germany and india. there are downsides to wind power though. for one, it's not always windy, and the turbines have to go somewhere. but they don't have to go in our fields and forests, not when there's plenty of space available for out at sea. oh, mm hm. they know, denmark, a strange structure is being built in small industrial harbor near our house.
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what looks like a gigantic tripod is actually the base for a floating wind turbine. the prototype is being assembled here, and the concept was developed by wind power pioneer. hendricks t stall. the main reason to do floating offshore wind is that it really increases the available resource of wind power. so with ordinary box increase, we can maybe cover there was electricity meets. if we add floating, we can maybe cover 10 times the was having 3 teams. model projects for floating wind farms are currently being developed in many regions of the world. the areas right for development are colored light blue on the map along there close enough to the coast that the power connection to land is still
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possible, but are located in areas that are too deep for fixed foundations. in germany, the topic of floating wind farms has so far been neglected. both the north sea and baltic sea are shallow enough for fixed foundations. only off the coast of mecklenburg, west pomeranian. can you find a german testing facility of floating wind turbines on a smaller scale? many european neighbors are ahead of germany with this research. the world's 1st floating wind farm was built off scotland in 2017. the structures are so large that they require water, depth of at least 80 meters only there could the floating foundations be erected. each tube is weighted down with 5000 tons of ballast as a counterweight to the wind turbine. above. the wind turbines were assembled online
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and brought to the foundations with huge floating cranes. the amount of work involved was enormous. but so is the wind energy yield? high wind, scotland has been the highest yielding wind farm in the u. k for several years in a row, the danes are hoping for similar success at lower cost. so if we want to make off shaw, really a key element of the future in that you supply it needs to be cheap and also has become cheap because it has in touch and each of mass production, but floating foundations on to allow, have not been made like that, they have been made in ship gas, one at a time with hand welding, taking hundreds of thousands of hours. so my idea was very simply to say, well, if we have something that has really become cheap, like the tours for the also turbines, why don't we just build air filter foundation in the same way and put it together in the same way as we put villa wind turbines by factory made components that are
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then finally stick with respect to gala. and that's how we build our floating foundation. ah, the foundations can be assembled very quickly in the port because the pipes are not welded, but connected with bolts. the construction consists of triangles making it very stable. the elements are thinner and lighter than those in scotland. after assembly, the foundation is pushed into the harbor basin. together the wind turbine and float lay around $1200.00 tons. a 3600 tons, ballast keel is suspended below the wind turbine on highly tear resistant cables. also in a triangular shape. the heavy keel is designed to keep the floating wind turbine upright even in the most violent storms. people normally when they go on structures like this, are surprised that they feel as if they don't move at all. they do move, but he's really, really no,
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it takes about 40 seconds to do one movement like that. and then the latest he'll angle is about $340.00 grease. so this one he is designed for a maximum, a wave weighs 25 meters from the bottom up to the top of the wave. we get that once every 50. yes. and that's what you designed for. so far, the danes have only tested the stability using computer calculations and models. now technicians are installing dozens of sensors. they are there to document the movements on the high seas. project partners include a wind energy subsidiary of siemens. the movements of the floating foundation may be small, but the wind turbine sits high up at around 100 meters and up there, wind and waves, exert extreme forces on the structure. your aunts are wonder for us and our turbine here. it's important that we track the movement in,
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thus via that we know the loads in the whole structure. we are glad mogley fossa does for you. we have to prepare for it now. so that we can make all the mistakes now from it via and learn as much as possible. a philo. yes. makin come on. this will feed remotely. her land come the floating wind turbine then embarks on its maiden voyage. it will be towed from greener to the norwegian coast for testing. incidentally, future floating wind farms will also include a floating transformer station that will bundle the electricity generated and transmitted to shore via long cables. once on site, the ballast keels of the danish prototypes are lower to 60 meters to achieve even more stability. they are anchor to the sea bed with long tethers. water. depths of up to 1000 meters are possible without any problems. the operators are now hoping
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for calm weather for the voyage and stormy times during test phase. only then will it become clear how robust the danish model really is. the mountains are the closest we can get to the heavens without flying. that is even in winter when folks settles in the valleys, it's usually sunny at high altitude. and every mountaineer knows that up here, the sun is much more intense. said this has to be the perfect place for a solar palate on trice. but something swiss we said his looking into the swiss alps, high above divorce. the solar panels have stood here for over 4 years. they're part of an experiment aimed at testing a range of technical set ups and positioning some of the modules or by facial
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meaning they can produce power from both sides. ah mikael leaning is an atmospheric physicist and environmental scientist. he wants to find out when each panel produces the most solar power and above all why that is. to do this, the researchers are recording meteorological data, like temperature, humidity, and wind, and cameras register the amount of snow bus. one visor within what's known about snow is that it reflects light forward, and that's something that's now been calculated for the 1st time hours. how much that accounts for in terms of solar power production. the lp's altitude is advantageous for producing solar energy, especially in comparison with a conventional photovoltaic plant in the midlands that see my anal sites. you can see that the winter production on tote up is much higher up to 4
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times higher. yeah. and that on an average annual overall is on 2 times as much energy can be generated on the total bug and on this was plateau. and that's extremely important because he that helps make up for the higher investment costs and it helps cover the power gap in winter when the scenes deny it's of interest to me, it's vacant. ah, the significantly higher energy yields of the result of lower temperatures and more intense sunlight at that altitude. in winter, the snow further boosts electricity production. 2 projects are already being planned in the alps. both in switzerland's valet cannon, one would see if solar farm built on a redundant pastor called the gondo solar project. it would stand 2000 meters above sea level and span 14 soccer pitches. it would produce 23300000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. more than half of it generated in the winter months. it would also supply
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around $5200.00 households with power new feasibility studies are currently being carried out. biologists are investigating possible environmental impacts and the go ahead has not yet been given me a 2nd solar project is planned in this athlete valley. it would be bigger than any of the previously planned solar power plants in switzerland above grandiose by facial solar panels would be installed over 5 square kilometers. equivalent to 700 soccer fields. the energy yield would be comparable to that of the largest hydro electric power plant in switzerland, 2000000000 kilowatt hours of electricity from reams of data, media leaning had created a model that shows how and where electricity can best be produced in switzerland.
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me. yes, it is. what we see here is the ideal distribution of photovoltaic installations across switzerland, 2 pieces. and you can clearly see that the mountain sites are optimal. that's according to a calculation that was done on came off. ah, it's a promising plan for how more green electricity could be produced in switzerland. according to the researchers calculations, however, hundreds of projects like gondo solar would be needed to cover the winter electricity gap, or 10 giant plants like the one in his office. valley legal authorizations have not yet been granted, but politicians are likely to approve of such solar installations in the swiss alps . researchers from ireland and india have worked out what it would mean if every house in the world had solar panels on the roof. they found that the energy produced wouldn't quite cover the amount used by the world's biggest consumer, china in 2020 but it would have been more than enough for the 2nd biggest consumer, the united states, i said, seems like an idea with
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a lot of potential. mm. but what effect would this have on our environment? it's so the energy is pretty amazing. it's generation is emissions free, and it's really cheap. but if something sounds too good to be true, there's gotta be a catch right? first, let's take a look at solar energy's impacts on the climate solar panels produce electricity without creating emissions, which sounds pretty awesome, but it's also not the whole story. producing them in particular uses lots of energy . raw materials have to be mind transported, processed than the whole thing has to be assembled. and as al economy is still largely run on fossil fuel, all this means greenhouse gas emissions. but the question is, how much and how much is that compared to other sources of energy?
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well, to answer that, there's a thing called life cycle assessment. this is gavin heath who's been studying this for many years. so we'll just let him explain how it works on the context of electricity generation. these services that being provided is the generation of kilowatt hour. the role of lifecycle assessment is to do as comprehensive in complete and an accounting of for instance, the greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted that are attributable to that kilowatt hour. the results of this, on average solar energy emits around 40 grams of c o 2 equivalent per kilowatt hour produces, which is really, really low compared to fossil fuels like natural gas at 500 grams or coal at the thousands. but then again, sun power does emits a little bit more c o 2 than wind power. what do we make of that? it shouldn't really be a choice light at this point of life cycle,
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greenhouse gas emissions between different renew. they all provide significant benefit. when does lights? what small is that solar energy has been becoming more and more efficient, which could further push down life cycle emissions. so yes, strictly speaking solar energy isn't completely emissions free, but it is already one of the climate friendliest energy sources. we have mixed up. let's take a look at what actually goes into making all these panels to produce solar cells. you need quite a few chemical substances. for example, the process of refining the silicon produces silicon tetra, chloride. it can be recycled and then be used, but it's not really clear whether manufacturers always do that. if it ends up in the water, it can have devastating effects on the environment and people's health all take hydrochloric acid, which is needed to clean the all the wife as during production. it's
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a highly corrosive assets that needs to be handled very carefully. we have a lot of hazardous chemicals of concern that are in east in to make solar panels. this is sheila davis of the silicon valley toxics coalition. she developed the solar school council that ranks manufacturers by the sustainability. we don't want to solve the climate problem at the expense of other important mire, mental issues like hazardous waste issues or resource issues or chemical of a issues that aren't young toxic issues. and that i pretty much, ah, the problem. what solar. so it is green, but it's only green in one phase. we want to make sure it's green throughout his life cycle. another problem is that depending on the type of solar cell lends manufacturer, hazardous materials like lads, cat, me, m, o, arsenic can end up in the modules. but increasingly there also alternatives. and one of the key components of planning,
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say for alternatives is being able to perform, or they call an alternative chemical assessment. and luckily right now we have the capacity to do this. so yes, the chemicals needed to make solar cells are problematic. there really needs to be pressure in the industry to come up with alternatives and make the switch once they find them. and finally, let's take a look at where all these panels go to die. solar panels last around 30 years, often even longer. but at some point, they've reached the end of their life. as of now, the waste heat off this cadapenal's is still relatively low about 250000 metric tons plots by 2050, it's expected to grow up to $78000000.00 metric tons. that would be more than $200.00 empire state buildings of old solar panels up. you know, now it's, we can see that it's going to be a problem that of course, and next her 15 years is going to be
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a major crisis. where old panels will pile on to the mountains of e waste. we are already struggling to deal with. the good news is that solar panels are recyclable and it's already being done mainly in the u. government caea made it compulsory for manufacturers to make sure that youth panels get recycled facilities like this one already recovered a good chunk of the materials. but there's also some bad news that recovered silicon, for example, isn't of high purity yet, which means we can't really use it to make new solar panels. instead it goes into other stuff like shoes, holes. and then that's another problem because the recycling is relatively high and that's partially at least because there's not yet that many modules to recycle. this means and places without legislation like the usa or china, it's still cheaper to throw alt modules into landfills,
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including all the valuable materials they're made with. recycling needs to become profitable, poor. we might have a real problem in a hands. there would be many, many, many solar panels that alleged here actually merchandise you lost, the ceo of rosie sola french thought up that's come up with a new recycling process and focuses on recovering the most valuable materials at high purity with a recycling method, the company says these materials could be recovered and to profits, and then go back into making more solar panels. the currently working on opening the 1st plants at the end of 2022. so the good news is that solar panels can be recycled. the bad news is that lots of them aren't yet. so what does this mean? well, yes, solar power is not entirely green, but that definitely doesn't mean we should turn our backs on it. its benefits are way too great for that. instead, we should openly address its problems and figure out how we can fix them. they were
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currently more than full 100 nuclear power plants world wide, and they produce a lot of atomic waste. the highly radioactive part of that waste is especially problematic. a single nuclear plant produces an average of 30 tons each year around the world. the set is on for a permanent storage site where this dangerous waste can safely be stored for a 1000000 years. but so far, no such place has been found. now, scientists, so considering new technology that could help solve our nuclear waste problem, how to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste. after more than 6 decades of nuclear energy use, it remains a contentious question. now, a new plan to neutralize atomic waste promise is an answer. experts say that could be done in transmutation reactors that work like this. a neutron source of last the nuclear waste with neutrons, resulting in
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a 2nd nuclear fission that would reduce the radioactivity in the atomic waste. the process is driven by a particle accelerator. when that switched off, the process stops, making it much easier to control than a conventional nuclear reactor. at the same time, it releases energy that can be converted into electricity. it sounds ingenious. so is this the nuclear energy of the future? it has a lot of potential according to nuclear engineer vita tom, he's researching transmutation at the cars who are institute for technology or k, i t, gibberish, learner, exhilaration driven. transmutation technology is very promising and theory also for, for the biggest loss is that a significantly reduce the long time frames that we currently have to guarantee
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nuclear waste storage site solar eclipse. right now that's up to a 1000000 years, but we could maybe get to a time from around a 1000 years. it was beginning of life. it was me and k i t is still doing basic research on transmutation reactors. but in a few years, it could be possible to carry out large scale tests of the technology. the e. u is financing the mirror test facility in belgium at an estimated cost of 1600000000 euros. the goal to significantly advance transmutation. but it will likely be another 30 years before the 1st reactors are up and running. despite this, but at home says he believes in the vision of a technology that both delivers energy and help solve the problem of nuclear waste . regard or you're not going to legal, it will be some time until we have
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a permanent nuclear waste or to site for the highly radioactive waste. that's why it's really good to have this process running parallel in some countries. it's also planned to build these sites in such a way that it would be possible to retrieve some of the waste in the containers heights, or who harder to even up further in danbury, on be dynamic, which means you to have a larger time frame available to possibly treat this highly radioactive waste and, and i not want him to, to machine info on the planet. i'm interviewed up a 100. so is this an efficient solution to our nuclear waste storage problem? physicist christoph pisca is analyzing transmutation technology for the german government's commission on the storage of radioactive waste. he says there are still many unsolved problems with neutralizing nuclear waste. but once more that student missing for she various technical procedures have to be
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developed for transmutation to work in the state darlin. the 1st step involves breaking down the existing radioactive waste into its components, thus afforded music complete. that requires highly complex chemistry of foods because we're dealing with highly radioactive ways, up to one. then you have the actual reactors easily go to him that you're putting large amounts of atomic waste into the reactors. mm hm. which means you have to look at the risk of an accident while the reactor is in useless believe. then there's the fact that transmutation can't neutralize 100 percent of long life nuclear waste. that's also why christopher pisca doesn't think much of using the technology in germany. he says it's too expensive, too complicated and too dangerous. in his view, it's more efficient for germany to focus on a permanent nuclear waste disposal site due to even defend local public transmutation doesn't solve the problem of a permanent storage site and at best it would reduce the amount of radioactive waste that has to go into permanent storage and so it's only worthwhile if we're
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talking about long term large scale use of nuclear energy. then transmutation could help reduce the problems even if it's not a complete solution before sending losing bite hoggard. but for that the technology needs to work. and as long as the atomic waste problem remains unsolved, it's further development seems to make sense, if not for germany than for other european countries as early television, this doesn't personally, i don't see much of a future for transmutation technology in germany. oh, good, good. from both on the other hand, oh, what i do see potential for european countries that want to stay in nuclear energy . for example, france in the czech republic for them, it could be a way to mitigate the problem of nuclear waste storage in the long term global, problematic trend shelf. as mine, as it is in my view, this can only be an option for countries that are committed to using nuclear energy for many more decades. to comment, nicky looks for all other countries that have decided to phase out is technology or
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that only intend to use it for a few more years than going i don't see transmutation as a sensible alternative or additional traditional reactors would. again, some sign come to the experts agree as it stands. now, transmutation is not the miracle solution to our nuclear waste problem. that's it for this edition. join us again next week for tomorrow to day d w sign show until then stay curious. ah ah ah ah ah ah
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ah mm mm. with who social inequality across africa. now get this. we had to lagos, nigeria, and ask equals why there is collected. thank god, between the rich and the vehicle to big all you i'd be feeling comfortable
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on youtube g music can't be destroyed. you can try, but it's impossible. ah, she performed for her life in auschwitz, jewish cellist on the tongue laska on fish. he was the nazis favorite conductor. mm hm. foot venga! to musicians who lived beneath the banner of the swastika, ah, why was music so important to the national socialist? music of the odds were to be used as part of the machine, a film about the sounds of power and inspiring story about survival. thanks to music. home on
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a you leave on my super lucky music under the swastika starts november 19th on d. w. oh, this is d w. news line from berlin. a deadly bombing gets a busy pedestrian street in the heart of east arm bolt. at least 6 people are dead and dozens more wounded turkeys president says the attack has the smell of terror also on the program. u. s. president joe biden is one of the world leaders in bobby for the.

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