Weather modification: The rain makers

Whether it is the Chinese firing weapons into the sky to make it rain, or the Thai government setting up a "royal rainmaking project", the science of weather modification has always had a touch of the sci-fi about it. So it is perhaps little surprise that the effectiveness of such an eccentric area of research has always been a little foggy. Indeed, no matter how hard you try – say, through launching silver-iodide particles into clouds to make them rain – it's hard to tell how influential you're actually being as it might have happened anyway.

But now, one of the world's leading weather experts thinks that the wind surrounding weather modification is set to change. Roelof Bruintjes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, USA, believes that weather-monitoring technology is so hot nowadays that science fiction may soon become science fact. Speaking earlier this week, he said: "Now we can measure clouds so well – even from the inside – we can get many more answers as to what the effects of man-made intervention are, and separate them from what would have happened naturally.
"For the first time, we can discover whether humans have changed weather patterns. It's a whole new opportunity. We are at the most exciting time for weather modification in its history."

Many of the world's driest nations have dabbled in weather modification since its first major lab breakthrough in 1949, when researchers at General Electric in New York discovered that silver-iodide smoke caused the kind of droplets in clouds to turn to ice, a process vital to rain formation. Since then, however, experts came to the conclusion that the processes involved in rain formation were just too complex.

But that hasn't stopped many governments from trying. There are currently 150 weather-modification projects taking place in more than 40 countries. In many of these, researchers are using trials in which some randomly chosen clouds are "seeded" while others are not, and both groups are monitored. Arlen Huggins of the Desert Research Institute in Nevada, USA, is leading one of these studies in Australia's Snowy Mountains, where the snow pack has shrunk in recent decades. Reportedly, their results to date might suggest that seeding works (although there are still two years of the six-year project left to go).

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How to make your home more energy-efficient in ten easy steps

Replace all light bulbs with energy-efficient ones. They are more expensive than normal bulbs, but they last far longer and are not the glaring and humming glass bricks of yore.
Treat your hot water cylinder to a cosy jacket. An 80mm-thick coat costs about £12 and will save you about £20 per year in heating bills and 160kg a year in emissions.

Set your heating correctly. Your boiler thermostat, time programmer and thermostatic radiator valves should only heat the rooms that you use at the times that you use them.

Bleed radiators to release trapped air. Turn off the heating and cautiously loosen the bleed valve at the top of the radiator: use a rag to catch the drips.

More substantial energy-efficiency measures in the home require a larger initial outlay, but these will be recouped through savings in energy bills over a period of years. There is a range of grants available. See what you are eligible for at: www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/proxy/view/full/2019/grantsandofferssearch.

The big investment to consider is insulation. About half of the heat lost from a typical home is through the walls and roof.

Cavity wall insulation costs about £500 to install and saves you about £90 a year in heating bills and 750kg a year in CO2 emissions. The external walls of many houses consist of two layers with a gap between them. Filling the gap will substantially decrease the amount of lost heat.

Solid walls lose even more heat than cavity walls. They can be covered with a weather-proof insulating treatment which costs about £1,900 and will save you about £300 a year in bills and an annual 2.6 tonnes of CO2.

Timber floors can be insulated by laying mineral wool padding under the boards at a cost of about £90, saving £45 a year and 350 kg of CO2.

If you have no loft insulation (that yellow foam stuff), 15 per cent of your heat could be escaping through the roof. Installing the recommended 270mm will cost about £750 and save you £110 and 1 tonne of CO2 per year.

Get double glazing. This can cut heat loss through windows by half. Costs vary, but you could save £90 a year on bills and 740kg of carbon emissions. You can, of course, just do the rooms that cost the most to heat.

Buy a new high-efficiency condensing boiler. It's a pricey investment, but will save you about 1.7 tonnes of CO2 and £200 a year.

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Moving house? Think 'energy-saving'

Location, location, location. The traditional estate agents' argument is that really nothing else matters to a prospective home purchaser. Perhaps the kitchen too. But not the energy bills. Oh no, never the fuel bills. They are just not important enough.

It has long been official policy to address this prejudice. But can it really be altered sufficiently, in order to begin to cut back on the £20bn we spend each year heating and lighting our homes?

I believe that it is entirely practical to deliver such a step change before this decade is out. I accept it will require a combined effort, of a kind never attempted before. It will mean the abandonment of a number of entrenched attitudes. But I am convinced it to be possible, and the end definitely worth it.

First off, is it right to make the time when people change home the right moment to concentrate upon getting the building's energy performance upgraded? I am convinced it is. For a start, movers are frequently improvers. You feel most inclined to make changes when you first arrive. Rather less so when you have long been incumbent, and have grown inured to all that is a bit wrong.

So, you are moving in. First things first. How do you establish what needs to be done to make the home more comfortable, reduce the mounting fuel bills, cut the energy wastage?

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Solar power, weeds and algae to fuel armed forces of future

Britain's armed forces could acquire a new tinge of green under plans to end the military dependency on fossil fuels.

Possible innovations include unmanned attack aircraft powered by the sun. They would fire missiles fuelled with hydrogen produced by feeding algae to microbes.

Tanks could be electrically powered or run on fuel produced from oil squeezed out of weeds so hardy they can grow in the desert.

Ships could run completely on electricity produced from generators powered by synthetic fuels made from grass.

The environmental requirements of the army, navy and air force will be presented this week to specially vetted defence and research companies.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said last week that many of the ideas would come to fruition only in the next generation. The US Air Force, however, is expected to start converting its aircraft to use a mix of synthetic and petroleum-based fuel by the end of 2010 and the RAF is likely to follow suit.

The Royal Navy’s new Type45 destroyers already use all-electric propulsion, albeit produced by gas generators, and greener ways of producing the electricity are being explored in conjunction with the French.

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