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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Industry: Broadcasting & receiving
Number of terms: 5074
Number of blossaries: 1
Company Profile:
The largest broadcasting organisation in the world.
All turbines use kinetic (movement) energy to cause a bladed rotor to turn and so generate electricity. A wind turbine is a machine that captures the force of the wind. Often seen in remote, exposed coastal regions or offshore where wind speeds are greatest and most consistent, smaller versions can be installed on houses, but research suggests they may be useless, or even counter-productive, in urban settings.
Industry:Natural environment
An aerator is a device that breaks the flow from your shower head (or other water supply) into a finer spray of droplets - so you get just as wet while using less water.
Industry:Natural environment
Air pollution usually refers to the presence of any chemical or particulate that alters the normal make-up of our atmosphere, causing direct threats to human health (such as breathing difficulties) or longer-term damage through its effects on our planet's ecosystem. Pollutants include smoke and dust, nitrogen oxides, methane, and the fumes from aerosol sprays and other solvents. Industrial processes and transport are major contributors to air pollution, but it can also be caused by natural processes such as forest fires and volcanoes. See also acid rain.
Industry:Natural environment
A thermostat maintains the temperature of a system at or near a stipulated level using sensors that tell it when to turn off heating devices. In most household central heating systems, a wall-mounted thermostat is used to set a maximum temperature for the house, while thermostatic radiator valves can be used to set a desired level for individual radiators.
Industry:Natural environment
A toxin is a chemical compound from one organism that is harmful to another organism.
Industry:Natural environment
The lowest level of the atmosphere, from the surface to about 10km. It is the level at which clouds form and where our weather phenomena occur.
Industry:Natural environment
Turbulence describes irregular eddies of air within the general air current. It can be caused when wind flows over obstacles such as trees or buildings and gets 'churned up', so it no longer has a smooth flow. Wind turbines do not handle turbulence well and power production can be dramatically decreased.
Industry:Natural environment
Man-made climate change - climate change caused by human activity as opposed to natural processes.
Industry:Natural environment
The atmosphere is the name for the mixture of gases surrounding the earth and retained there by the planet's gravitational pull - our air, in other words. The atmosphere comprises the troposphere, the stratosphere, the mesosphere and the thermosphere.
Industry:Natural environment
Microscopic particles suspended in the lower atmosphere that reflect sunlight back to space. These generally have a cooling affect on the planet and can mask global warming. They play a key role in the formation of clouds, fog, precipitation and ozone depletion in the atmosphere.
Industry:Natural environment