Marina Barrage Singapore


The Singapore Marina Barrage is a dam.
Officially opened on 1st November 2008.
The nine gates at the mouth of the Marina Channel keeps the seawater out.
Making the Marina Basin into a freshwater reservoir.
This 10,000-ha catchment is the largest and most urbanized reservoir of the country's
15 water reserves.
Here's to share the pictures I have taken of the place.
I went in the evening and could still catch some bright views.
Apparently, going to the Barrage in the afternoon can be very hot.
Large constructions are currently going on in the vicinity.
Be CAREFUL of heavy vehicles.
They seemed to predominate the roads.

During the earlier part of the evening at the bridge.

The pier deck.

Solar lights were used everywhere.
Security cameras were place everywhere too.
So behave yourselves.
Warning floats of...'DANGER' ... I guess NO swimming.

This bridge leads to the building that will have some restaurants.
There was an event going on during my visit.
I guess they do hold functions.

In the Pump House there are 7 mighty pumps..
And they can empty an Olympic-sized swimming pool in less than 9 seconds.

The colorful fountain with formations that synchronize with the music.

This beautiful pathway leads to the viewing deck.

Saw this fountain where children and adults were enjoying themselves.

Mini cruise boats.

Seeing the city from the viewing deck.
A lovely view, with the lights slowly starting to glow as the night falls.



I was so captivated and immersed by the surrounding scenery.

This 'Green Roof' structure has a lift that goes down to the ground level.
Will be good for elder folks.


As it got darker, the lights got brighter.
The whole scene just sparkled.

Lights lit all along the pathway.

In the night the bridge lights up.

The place was so tranquil.
People were there to relax and sink into the atmosphere.

Christmas Greetings by 'Precious Moments' at the 'Fountain of Wealth'


At the Fountain of Wealth,
greetings from the 'PRECIOUS MOMENTS'
indeed brought in some Christmas cheer.

Greetings from 'Precious Moments' at the 'Fountain of Wealth'

Many huge displays were placed all around the Fountain.
Adults and children were having a merriment time
taking photos with their favourite doll.
Below are pictures of these dolls...

Getting rid of Green House Gas to prevent Global Warming

Burying the greenhouse gas

New tool could aid safe underground storage of CO2

Deborah Halber, News Office Correspondent
November 17, 2008

To prevent global warming, researchers and policymakers are exploring a variety of options to significantly cut the amount of carbon dioxide that reaches the atmosphere. One possible approach involves capturing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide at the source -- an electric power plant, for example -- and then injecting them underground.

While theoretically promising, the technique has never been tested in a full-scale industrial operation. But now MIT engineers have come up with a new software tool to determine how much CO2 can be sequestered safely in geological formations.

The work will be reported Nov. 18 at the 9th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-9), to be held Nov. 16-20 in Washington, D.C.

According to the 2007 MIT study, "The Future of Coal," and other sources, capturing CO2 at coal-burning power plants and storing it in deep geological basins will mitigate its negative effects on the atmosphere.

However, injecting too much CO2 could create or enlarge underground faults that may become conduits for CO2 to travel back up to the atmosphere, said Ruben Juanes, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) and one of the authors of the work. "Our model is a simple, effective way to calculate how much CO2 a basin can store safely. It is the first to look at large scales and take into account the effects of flow dynamics on the stored CO2," he said.

Already Juanes and co-author CEE graduate student Michael L. Szulczewski have applied their model to the Fox Hills Sandstone in the Powder River basin straddling Montana and Wyoming. They found that the formation would hold around 5 gigatons of CO2 -- more than half of all the CO2 emitted by the United States each year.

A geological basin is a large underground bowl between 100 and 1,000 kilometers wide and 5,000 kilometers deep that has filled over millennia with layers of sand, fine-grained clays, and other sediments that are eventually consolidated into porous rock. Some of the layers contain brine and are called deep saline aquifers. CO2 would be injected into the aquifers through wells.

The MIT model predicts how much a plume of CO2 will migrate from its injection well and the path it is likely to take due to underground slopes and groundwater flow.

"A lot of people have done studies at small scales," Szulczewski said. "If we're going to offset emissions, however, we're going to inject a lot of CO2 into the subsurface. This requires thinking at the basin scale."

"Despite the fact that our model applies at the basin scale, it is very simple. Using only pen and paper, you take geological parameters such as porosity, temperature and pressure to calculate storage capacity," Szulczewski said. "Other methods suffer from major shortcomings of accuracy, complexity or scale."

Juanes studies a phenomenon called capillary trapping, through which CO2, liquefied by the pressure of the Earth, is trapped as small blobs in the briny water (picture bubbles of oil in vinegar). The CO2 dispersed throughout the basin's structural pores eventually dissolves and reacts with reservoir rocks to precipitate out into harmless carbonate minerals.

CO2 has been sequestered in small pilot projects in Norway, Algeria and elsewhere. In 2004, 1,600 tons of CO2 were injected 1,500 meters into high-permeability brine-bearing sandstone of the Frio formation beneath the Gulf coast of Texas. Current proposals call for injecting billions of tons within the continental United States.

The GHGT-9 conference is organized by MIT in collaboration with the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG), with sponsorship from the U.S. Department of Energy.

This research was supported by the McClelland Fund, administered by the MIT Energy Initiative, and by the Reed Research Fund.

This article was originally published by MIT and can be seen below:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/bury-greenhouse-1117.html


The Up Scale Gifts : Lladro


The craftsmanship of these art pieces are rare.
Worth every bit it commands.
Here are some Lladro procelain that's just breathtaking

'River of Dreams'
SD$4,480.00


'Romantic Feelings'
SD$7,000.00


'Flowers for Everyone'
SD$5,900.00


'Happy Tea Time'
SD$740.00


'My Loyal Friend'
SD$590.00

These are not Lladro.
Above SD$100.00 each.


Starts at SD$80.00 each.

Christmas is giving


CHRISTMAS is a time of GIVING.
There are many gifts, from the nostalgic to the everyday practical stuff.
Be it extravagant or simple, it's the thought that counts.
So have yourself a Merry Christmas and start giving.
As it goes, the theme this year is, 'even the smallest sweet counts'.
Here are some lovely gifts that are inexpensive and can be memorable.

At Astoria, there is a wide range of Christmas ornaments that will grab your attention.
Use them as decorations in the home or gifts for the year.
Collecting a different one, each year can lead to an invaluable collection eventually.

All these from Metro.





Astoria






Swarovski




For the home.
The White.

The Black.



Not forgetting Charity
MERRY CHRISTMAS, GOD BLESS