The Great Barrier Reef is a beautiful natural wonder. It is actually the world’s largest coral reefs. Coral reefs are located throughout the world and grow as long as the conditions are right. In general the water and climate needs to be warm and they need to grow in places that do not see a lot of wave action. Waves can damage them and so can the colder waters. It is so amazing that coral found the situation so ideal in a certain part of the world to be able to grow in such a vast manner.

Australia is the home to the Great Barrier Reef. Corals are interesting creatures. They don’t look like they are actually living, but they are. The coral reefs are a collection or a grouping of different types of coral. The Great Barrier Reef is billed as one of the seven wonders of the world. And this is all because a big group of coral decided to congregate together. It is amazing and beautiful.

The Great Barrier Reef is also home to a lot of different life forms and species. So not only is the coral living, but there is life all around it. Different sea species such as fish and sea turtles live near the coral. Some fish live in and around it, for example. Exploring the reef could reveal all kinds of different life forms and sea creatures. That aspect is part of the reason why the reef is so popular.

As beautiful as it is, the Great Barrier Reef may be in trouble. The issue of “climate change” as been a hot topic lately. The greenhouse effect has been rearing its ugly head as it is clear that the climate is different than it was. Coral may not look it but it is delicate. It needs the proper conditions in order to survive. When the climate changes, that means that the coral may not be in the ideal situation anymore. This is one thing to keep in mind as you make your consumer choices. Climate change has been thought to be largely man made. It is a shame that it could affect things that are as interesting and unique as the Great Barrier Reef.

HBF has warned that the changes to the health insurance rebate expected to be announced in the budget next week will be disastrous for its 800,000 members.

WA’s leading health insurer is calling on the Government at the eleventh hour, to think again before taking an axe to the rebate.

HBF Managing Director Rob Bransby said the moves would penalise people who are doing the most to take pressure off the public system by taking responsibility for their own healthcare.

“Over 50 per cent of West Australians have private health insurance, these changes will not just affect the rich, they will cause hardship for all our members” Mr Bransby said.

“And every Australian who drops their health cover will place an additional burden on our already stretched public health system, affecting the whole community.”

Mr Bransby said the changes couldn’t come at a worse time.

“West Australians are already experiencing loss of security in the current economic climate. Targeting their health is the last thing they need. What’s more, Australia’s ageing population is placing increasing strain on this State’s health services.

“These changes essentially threaten the balance between Australia’s public and private health systems that have served us so well.“

Mr Bransby said opponents of the rebate system overlooked the fact that while individuals are paid a 30 cent rebate per dollar to take out health cover, those same individuals pay an additional 70 cents in the dollar into the overall health system.

“Today, people with private health insurance inject over $11 million into Australia’s health system,” he said.

The most dramatic component of this plant dedicated to the production of energy is a tower nearly 1,000 feet high and 130 meters wide, which can be spotted from more than one hundred kilometers. This gigantic reinforced concrete tower will be hollow like a chimney and is surrounded at its base by a circular structure of 4 kilometers in diameter, made of transparent material, acting as the roof of a greenhouse. The solar tower technology was designed by German engineer Jörg Schlaich, that experienced in the 80s in a pilot plant of 180 meters high and 50 kW of energy output, built in the town of Manzanares (Ciudad Real).

Hot wind

The engineers of the Australian company EnviroMission, promoter of the project, the future plant will produce 200 MW of energy when the sun’s radiation will heat the mass of air present under the roof of transparent material, forcing their ascent at a speed of 15 meters per second as a hot wind (60 degrees) for the high tower a thousand feet, but not before passing through 32 turbines [of 6.25 MW each] designed with ultra-light materials that generate electricity in the bottom of the tower .

The plant will be operational in 2009 and will provide power for 24 hours a day from a battery system that ensures a constant flow of wind up overnight. This project is heavily promoted by the Government of Australia, which gets 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources, while being one of the great powers that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. EnviroMission says its solar tower each year will prevent the expulsion to the atmosphere of about 830,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Although the pilot plant that operated in Spain between 1982 and 1989 demonstrated the conceptual feasibility of solar tower technology, is yet to clarify if this way of producing solar thermal energy will be economically profitable. Some experts suggest it could be an expensive way of producing electricity when compared to the performance of wind power plants. But the goal is EnviroMission current electricity production. Please everything is as it should, this company will build another 4 more.