Orangutan Technology
Post
17/01/07, Refocus, Scottish agency invests in climbing frame to maintain wind turbines, (Source).
18/01/07, Ker Munthit, 'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle, (Source).
09/01/07, Oliver Moore, 'Why not a banana over Texas?', (Source).
17/01/07, Refocus, Scottish agency invests in climbing frame to maintain wind turbines, (Back).
ABERDEEN, Scotland, January 17, 2007 (Refocus Weekly) A research agency in Scotland will support development of a ‘monkey-like’ device that can reduce the cost of installing wind turbines.
ITI Energy will invest £2 million in the Orangutan® technology of Aberdeen-based Oreada, a renewable energy consulting firm. The device is made of two friction clamps connected by a hydraulic structure that allows a caterpillar-like motion.
Forecasts indicate that 40,000 turbines will be installed worldwide by 2010, and developers claim the Orangutan will allow windfarm operators to eliminate the need for expensive cranes to maintain turbines. Currently, operators use cranes that are designed for the construction industry, which are hard to transport to remote sites.
Orangutan climbs a turbine tower and carries equipment needed for the maintenance operation. The device can be used for a variety of lifting jobs and can be operated remotely, and could be adapted for use in building turbines and in other environments, such as offshore oil and gas.
“This project emphasises the huge opportunities in the renewable energy sector,” says Scotland’s deputy first minister Nicol Stephen. “It will help to reduce both offshore and onshore windfarm development costs.”
“I am determined that Scotland should be the renewables powerhouse of Europe,” he adds. “It is clear that the ITIs are playing an important role in our drive to boost business R&D in Scotland. It is vital that we do more to create the great commercial opportunities of tomorrow.”
Oreada was created by the founders of the oil and gas firm Boreas Consultants, which was sold this month for £3.8 million. The company was created to transfer skills developed in the offshore oil and gas industry and apply them to the renewable energy sector as it moved offshore.
“We have invested substantial time and effort to identify commercially viable, renewable technology development opportunities,” says Nial McCollam of ITI Energy. “We believe Orangutan will provide major benefits to the (onshore) wind industry and create real opportunities for crane hire companies, turbine suppliers and windfarm operators.”
At the end of 2005, there were 35 GW of installed global capacity which is expected to rise to 90 GW by 2010.
ITI Energy was established in 2004 and has a fund of £150 million from the Scottish to manage early stage research and development programs across the energy spectrum, including renewables and mature oil and gas. It currently manages seven projects, including £4 million to develop a new low-cost high-energy rechargeable battery and £9.3 million to develop a low-cost large-scale flow battery to provide multi-megawatt storage.
In the renewables area, it identified that technologies which reduce capital, operating and maintenance costs are key to the ongoing development of renewables, particularly onshore and offshore wind.
18/01/07, Ker Munthit, 'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle, (Back).
PHNOM PENH — A woman who disappeared in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia as a child has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years, police said Thursday.
The woman — believed to be Rochom P'ngieng, now 27 years old — cannot speak any intelligible language, so details of her saga have been difficult to confirm.
“She is like half-human and half-animal,” said Mao San, police chief of Oyadao district in Rattanakiri province. “She's weird. She sleeps during the day and stays up at night.”
The father of Rochom P'ngieng, a member of the Pnong ethnic minority, said he recognized his daughter by a scar on her back and her facial features, according to Mao San. The father is a village policeman named Sal Lou.
Rochom P'ngieng, then eight years old, disappeared one day in 1988 when she was herding buffalo in a remote northeastern jungle area, said Chea Bunthoeun, a deputy provincial police chief.
She was discovered this month after a villager noticed that food disappeared from a lunch box he left at a site near his farm.
“He decided to stake out the area and then spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person, sneaking in to steal his rice,” said Chea Bunthoeun.
The villager gathered some friends and the group managed to catch the woman on Jan. 13.
“Her parents had already lost hope of finding her since she went missing for so many years. The father cried and hugged her when he met his daughter,” Chea Bunthoeun said.
Since being found, the woman has had difficulty adjusting to normal life, apparently because of her long stay in the wild, said Mao San.
Authorities want medical experts to take DNA samples from the parents and the woman to see if they match. The woman's parents have given verbal consent for such a test, he said.
09/01/07, Oliver Moore, 'Why not a banana over Texas?', (Back).
Montreal artist spearheads project that he says has many possible meanings.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a . . . giant banana?
A 300-metre airship shaped like a banana is expected to be released in Mexico late next year and allowed to drift across the border into Texas airspace, an unconventional art project that has received funding from the Canadian government.
If all goes according to plan, the helium-filled balloon made of bamboo and synthetic paper will circle over Texas for up to a month. It will drift in a low orbit some 20 or 30 kilometres above the Earth until it disintegrates.
Asked why he is spearheading the project, Montreal-based artist Cesar Saez responded with a question of his own.
"Why? Because it's possible. Why not a banana over Texas?"
The project will cost around $1-million, roughly one-eighth of which has been raised so far. The Canada Council for the Arts has contributed a small amount, as has the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Mr. Saez said that, as with poetry, there are many possible meanings to the project, and each viewer will react differently.
"We address advertisement, we address entertainment, we address political issues," the 38-year-old Argentine-born artist said from his Montreal home.
"The issue of migration in the [United] States is another. The banana is built in Mexico and released in Mexico and enters in a furtive way."
He said the balloon will appear smaller than a crescent moon, but will be easily visible as long as it remains intact.
The project has not gone beyond the modelling stage yet, in part because fundraising has lagged behind expectations, but Mr. Saez said that they have still been able to push plans forward. Work has been done in Argentina, Cuba and Quebec.
As well as money, the team is looking for engineers, scientists, mathematicians and translators. They also need a launch site in northern Mexico.
Their legal team is already at work, Mr. Saez said, and will respond to any hostile moves by the U.S. military.
"There is no law for wind," he said. "That space is freer than the high seas."
The team's website -- geostationarybananaovertexas.com -- makes clear that this is a scientific as well as artistic endeavour.
The balloon is an open-source and collaborative project designed to "develop a new artistic discipline and a space technology accessible to everyone."
Some have suggested parallels between the work of Mr. Saez and the artist Christo, who has famously wrapped islands and buildings and, in 2005, hung bolts of saffron fabric on thousands of arches built in New York's Central Park. But Mr. Saez, who is noted in Quebec for his public works of art, rejects the comparison.
Although the banana project is Christo-like in its grandeur, the online images are actually more reminiscent of Andy Warhol's famous cover for the 1967 album The Velvet Underground and Nico. It's no accident.
"The banana is 'pop'," the team's conceptual statement explains. "At the end it [is] a Show, a banana in the sky is an odd celebration to spectacle, to the advertisement industries; and to the Warhol Art."
(Back)
18/01/07, Ker Munthit, 'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle, (Source).
09/01/07, Oliver Moore, 'Why not a banana over Texas?', (Source).
17/01/07, Refocus, Scottish agency invests in climbing frame to maintain wind turbines, (Back).
ABERDEEN, Scotland, January 17, 2007 (Refocus Weekly) A research agency in Scotland will support development of a ‘monkey-like’ device that can reduce the cost of installing wind turbines.
ITI Energy will invest £2 million in the Orangutan® technology of Aberdeen-based Oreada, a renewable energy consulting firm. The device is made of two friction clamps connected by a hydraulic structure that allows a caterpillar-like motion.
Forecasts indicate that 40,000 turbines will be installed worldwide by 2010, and developers claim the Orangutan will allow windfarm operators to eliminate the need for expensive cranes to maintain turbines. Currently, operators use cranes that are designed for the construction industry, which are hard to transport to remote sites.
Orangutan climbs a turbine tower and carries equipment needed for the maintenance operation. The device can be used for a variety of lifting jobs and can be operated remotely, and could be adapted for use in building turbines and in other environments, such as offshore oil and gas.
“This project emphasises the huge opportunities in the renewable energy sector,” says Scotland’s deputy first minister Nicol Stephen. “It will help to reduce both offshore and onshore windfarm development costs.”
“I am determined that Scotland should be the renewables powerhouse of Europe,” he adds. “It is clear that the ITIs are playing an important role in our drive to boost business R&D in Scotland. It is vital that we do more to create the great commercial opportunities of tomorrow.”
Oreada was created by the founders of the oil and gas firm Boreas Consultants, which was sold this month for £3.8 million. The company was created to transfer skills developed in the offshore oil and gas industry and apply them to the renewable energy sector as it moved offshore.
“We have invested substantial time and effort to identify commercially viable, renewable technology development opportunities,” says Nial McCollam of ITI Energy. “We believe Orangutan will provide major benefits to the (onshore) wind industry and create real opportunities for crane hire companies, turbine suppliers and windfarm operators.”
At the end of 2005, there were 35 GW of installed global capacity which is expected to rise to 90 GW by 2010.
ITI Energy was established in 2004 and has a fund of £150 million from the Scottish to manage early stage research and development programs across the energy spectrum, including renewables and mature oil and gas. It currently manages seven projects, including £4 million to develop a new low-cost high-energy rechargeable battery and £9.3 million to develop a low-cost large-scale flow battery to provide multi-megawatt storage.
In the renewables area, it identified that technologies which reduce capital, operating and maintenance costs are key to the ongoing development of renewables, particularly onshore and offshore wind.
18/01/07, Ker Munthit, 'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle, (Back).
PHNOM PENH — A woman who disappeared in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia as a child has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years, police said Thursday.
The woman — believed to be Rochom P'ngieng, now 27 years old — cannot speak any intelligible language, so details of her saga have been difficult to confirm.
“She is like half-human and half-animal,” said Mao San, police chief of Oyadao district in Rattanakiri province. “She's weird. She sleeps during the day and stays up at night.”
The father of Rochom P'ngieng, a member of the Pnong ethnic minority, said he recognized his daughter by a scar on her back and her facial features, according to Mao San. The father is a village policeman named Sal Lou.
Rochom P'ngieng, then eight years old, disappeared one day in 1988 when she was herding buffalo in a remote northeastern jungle area, said Chea Bunthoeun, a deputy provincial police chief.
She was discovered this month after a villager noticed that food disappeared from a lunch box he left at a site near his farm.
“He decided to stake out the area and then spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person, sneaking in to steal his rice,” said Chea Bunthoeun.
The villager gathered some friends and the group managed to catch the woman on Jan. 13.
“Her parents had already lost hope of finding her since she went missing for so many years. The father cried and hugged her when he met his daughter,” Chea Bunthoeun said.
Since being found, the woman has had difficulty adjusting to normal life, apparently because of her long stay in the wild, said Mao San.
Authorities want medical experts to take DNA samples from the parents and the woman to see if they match. The woman's parents have given verbal consent for such a test, he said.
09/01/07, Oliver Moore, 'Why not a banana over Texas?', (Back).
Montreal artist spearheads project that he says has many possible meanings.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a . . . giant banana?
A 300-metre airship shaped like a banana is expected to be released in Mexico late next year and allowed to drift across the border into Texas airspace, an unconventional art project that has received funding from the Canadian government.
If all goes according to plan, the helium-filled balloon made of bamboo and synthetic paper will circle over Texas for up to a month. It will drift in a low orbit some 20 or 30 kilometres above the Earth until it disintegrates.
Asked why he is spearheading the project, Montreal-based artist Cesar Saez responded with a question of his own.
"Why? Because it's possible. Why not a banana over Texas?"
The project will cost around $1-million, roughly one-eighth of which has been raised so far. The Canada Council for the Arts has contributed a small amount, as has the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Mr. Saez said that, as with poetry, there are many possible meanings to the project, and each viewer will react differently.
"We address advertisement, we address entertainment, we address political issues," the 38-year-old Argentine-born artist said from his Montreal home.
"The issue of migration in the [United] States is another. The banana is built in Mexico and released in Mexico and enters in a furtive way."
He said the balloon will appear smaller than a crescent moon, but will be easily visible as long as it remains intact.
The project has not gone beyond the modelling stage yet, in part because fundraising has lagged behind expectations, but Mr. Saez said that they have still been able to push plans forward. Work has been done in Argentina, Cuba and Quebec.
As well as money, the team is looking for engineers, scientists, mathematicians and translators. They also need a launch site in northern Mexico.
Their legal team is already at work, Mr. Saez said, and will respond to any hostile moves by the U.S. military.
"There is no law for wind," he said. "That space is freer than the high seas."
The team's website -- geostationarybananaovertexas.com -- makes clear that this is a scientific as well as artistic endeavour.
The balloon is an open-source and collaborative project designed to "develop a new artistic discipline and a space technology accessible to everyone."
Some have suggested parallels between the work of Mr. Saez and the artist Christo, who has famously wrapped islands and buildings and, in 2005, hung bolts of saffron fabric on thousands of arches built in New York's Central Park. But Mr. Saez, who is noted in Quebec for his public works of art, rejects the comparison.
Although the banana project is Christo-like in its grandeur, the online images are actually more reminiscent of Andy Warhol's famous cover for the 1967 album The Velvet Underground and Nico. It's no accident.
"The banana is 'pop'," the team's conceptual statement explains. "At the end it [is] a Show, a banana in the sky is an odd celebration to spectacle, to the advertisement industries; and to the Warhol Art."
(Back)
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