Alumifuel Power Corp. (AFPW)

[Solartrader]

Article in Today's Newspaper.



Even in a digital age, weather balloons are key to accuracy in forecasts.

Seen from space, it might look like a celebration when 800 big balloons lift into the sky around the world, all at the same moment.
But this twice-daily ritual, honored at two locations in Minnesota and 69 across the continental U.S., is one of the oldest and most basic ways of building the weather forecast.

Two centuries after pioneering hot-air balloonists discovered that the atmosphere was cooler and lighter a few thousand feet above Paris, modern (and unmanned) balloons soar 20 miles or more to the upper edges of where weather occurs. Along the way they measure temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure and humidity and transmit the readings by battery-powered radio every second back to earth. Together they provide a snapshot of weather conditions in three dimensions around the world.

"I hate to use the word priceless, but they kind of are," said Mike Griesinger, meteorologist at the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service.

Filled with either hydrogen or helium, the 5-foot-diameter latex balloons rise through temperatures sometimes as cold as 130 below zero, expanding to nearly 30 feet wide in the light air pressure before popping. Their payloads, perhaps weighing a pound, fall to earth by parachute.

Each launch from the Chanhassen office of the National Weather Service -- the other Minnesota launch is at International Falls -- costs about $225, said Griesinger.

Aircraft and satellites take weather readings, but aircraft can't fly as high as weather balloons, and satellites can't provide the same level of detail.

"Take those away and you lose the accuracy in our forecasts at a quick rate," he said.

In Minnesota, balloons lift off at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.-- and more often when severe weather approaches. The launch times correspond to noon and midnight universal time, a global reference time similar to Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time at 0 degrees longitude. That runs through Greenwich, England.

From the Chanhassen launch site, the balloons generally travel 30 to 50 miles downwind before falling, most often across the east metro counties, or Rice and Goodhue counties to the south, or into Wisconsin. The package of devices is similar in size and appearance to a box of Chinese takeout, and usually drifts gently to earth under its small plastic parachute after the balloon pops.

About one-third of them are mailed back to the weather service in an attached mailer, and refurbished. But some fall into trouble.

"We've gotten some claims. Occasionally a cow will eat one and get indigestion," said Joe Facundo, chief of the observing systems branch of the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Md. "They've crashed on somebody's rooftop and broken a shingle, or crashed on somebody's car. Our bigger concern is when they land in populated areas, somebody thinking it's a terrorist threat of some sort. But I think people have gotten a lot better understanding [of] what it is when they see one."

Source- http://www.startribune.com/local/82129217.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUUUUsZ

A READY MADE MARKET FOR ALUMIFUELS PRODUCTS!