The Frisian Solar Challenge

A famous skating competition tour held in Fryslan, one of the northern provinces of The Netherlands. is The Eleven-cities Tour. This is a tour of almost 200 km in length, on frozen canals, rivers and lakes between eleven Frisian cities.

That tour is not held each year, mostly because the Dutch winters do not permit skating on natural ice every year.

Moreover, a result of the climate change we see more warm winters nowadays and many people already believe we will not experience the Tour again because of global warming.

There is, however, an fascinating alternative, which is taking place along the same historical 200 kilometres right now: the world’s largest race of solar vessels, The Frisian Solar Challenge

Around 50 teams of mainly universities and specialist companies from Europe participate in the event. There are teams from Brazil, England, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Poland, and - of course - The Netherlands.

clipped from www.frisiansolarchallenge.nl The Frisian Solar Challenge has started! clipped from www.frisiansolarchallenge.nl Information Start and finish Addresses campings Solar Challenge 2006 News Organization Links clipped from ap.google.com The six-day race covers a 135-mile course on a network of canals, rivers and lakes in the north of the Netherlands. Speed limits on narrow waterways have been temporarily waived for the boats, the fastest of which can go nearly 19 mph. Sunlight is not the most obvious source of renewable energy in the rain-soaked Netherlands, but organizers say the threat of poor weather will spark creative design. Participants met that challenge with technologies that included water-cooled solar cells, carbon fiber propellers, and mathematically-optimized designs to reduce drag. clipped from www.youtube.com Frisian Solar Challenge 2008 promo clipped from www.youtube.com Delta Lloyd Solar Boat Model clipped from www.youtube.com clipped from www.youtube.com Copacabana Team - Frisian Solar Challenge clipped from www.youtube.com Solar powered speedboat Czeers MkI first test runs!

Related:
Frisian Solar Challenge
The Associated Press: Difficult start at solar boat race in Netherlands
The Frisian Solar Challenge for boats
Elfstedentocht - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WWF - Climate Witness: Henk Kroes, Netherlands
Racing Solar Boats in The Netherlands

The Amsterdam Airport Rotating Floating Airport concept

An innovative proposal for the needed expansion of Amsterdam Airport is the Rotating Floating Airport (RFA) invented by Van Den Noort Innovations BV in the Netherlands. The entire structure would resemble a giant propeller lodged in the ground with arrival and departure lounges, transport stations below sea level and air traffic landing and taking-off on its blades.

clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl Van den Noort Innovations BV clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl Rotating Floating Airport - RFA Van den Noort Innovations BV in collaboration with Royal Haskoning Technical Engineering and the Technical University in Delft/Holland have developed the Rotating Floating Airport concept. This concept consists of a purely afloat platform and runway system rotating 360 degrees along a "fixed" circular terminal solely constructed on the bottom of the sea. clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl Principle clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl Floating Platform The basic construction method is to wet cast the individual cylinders with an integral top slab to be assembled into modules. On -site module assembly Underwater shape Figure: North Sea Module clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl Rotating runways The runways rotate by power propellers turning the runways into the wind direction. clipped from www.noort-innovations.nl RFA Transport system The fixed terminal is constructed in different levels to accommodate a departure and arrival hall with all required facilities along with a subway station connected to the mainland through a 2-line tube.

Related:
Van den Noort Innovations BV, The Netherlands. Research and development civil engineering.
Rotating Floating Airport as an alternative for Schiphol in the Northsea.
Japan's Spectacular Floating Airports

Netherlands Eases Segway Ban

clipped from www.reuters.com Dutch to ease ban on self-balancing Segway scooter AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands is to relax its ban on the Segway motorized scooter, a two-wheeled, gyroscopically-balanced machine of which U.S. President George W. Bush is a fan. "The general use of the Segway will be allowed on bicycle paths and roads under the condition that a maximum speed of 25 km per hour will be kept to," the Dutch government said in a statement. clipped from www.youtube.com clipped from www.segway.nl 01-07-2008 | Segway uiterlijk op 1 juli a.s op de weg!!!. lees verder clipped from www.minjus.nl Uitvoering moties Segway Persbericht | 18-04-2008 Op 25 maart 2008 heeft uw Kamer twee moties inzake de Segway (TK 2007-2008, 29 398, nrs. 82 en 83) aangenomen. Het lid De Krom vroeg na afloop van de stemmingen, geïnformeerd te worden over de uitvoering van deze moties. Met deze brief delen wij u mee op welke wijze het kabinet met de moties om wil gaan.

Related:
Dutch to ease ban on self-balancing Segway scooter | Technology | Reuters
Segway - Home
Neowin.net - Netherlands Eases Segway Ban
Ministerie van Justitie geeft groen licht aan Segway | Tweakers.net Nieuws

VoteMatch -- Dutch US Elections Website

clipped from www.sunherald.com VoteMatch Goes for President VoteMatch (http://www.stemwijzer.nl) is back online in the Netherlands, starting today. Not for Dutch elections this time, but for the presidential race in the United States. For and in collaboration with Dutch public TV news and current affairs program Een Vandaag, the Institute for Public and Politics (IPP) has developed a special VoteMatch USA website (http://www.VoteMatchUSA.org). clipped from www.votematchusa.org VoteMatch USA 2008 clipped from eenvandaag.nl Welcome to the OneToday’s VoteMatch USA VoteMatch determines your political preference through statements from the largest democratic and republican candidates taking part in the preliminary US presidency elections. The statements Answer the statements by clicking on agree, disagree or don't know.You can add extra weight to any statements you find especially important. In a separate screen you can choose which candidates you would like to include in your result calculation. In the result screen you can see the candidate you agree with most.