1150 Words by Charlene Brown: March 2025

Sunday, March 30, 2025

My 1000th blog post on 1150 Words!

Cañada de la Virgen

watercolour and crayon sketch

My daughter and I were in San Miguel de Allende last week enjoying a wonderful Road Scholar trip. One day we visited a nearby archaeological site, Cañada de la Virgen. One of the northernmost step pyramid sites in Mexico, it is situated on the MesoAmerican border north of which people were more nomadic and did not build such enormous structures.

The original name of this Otomi celestial and moonrise-aligned ritual and ceremonial location, dating from around 300 CE, is unknown. The Spaniards renamed the (by then abandoned) site Cañada (canyon) de la Virgen when they arrived in about 1540 CE. The virgin to whom the name refers is the Virgin of Guadalupe ̶ Mary, the mother of Jesus ̶ who appeared to a man in Mexico in 1531.

Sunday, March 23, 2025

Favourite Google Streetview ‘location’ paintings from 2010

County Clare, Ireland

Rio de Janeiro from Estrada do Sumaré

Revueltas, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Diamond Head Rd, Honolulu HI, USA

Looking south from GC-210, Canary Islands

Lutsiveien, Stavanger, Norway

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA USA

Albertacce, Corsica

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Favourite Google Streetview ‘location’ paintings from 2011

The Bank of Eureka & the Savings Bank of Humboldt, Eureka, California, USA

Via Verdi in Talana, Sardinia

St Louis Cathedral from Decatur Street, New Orleans, LA USA

Koyukuk River crossing, Alaska, USA

North of Glenorchy, Otago, New Zealand

Ave. de Verdun, Eze, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Table Mountain from Leeukloof Drive, Cape Town, South Africa

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Thermovoltaic systems

Lafarge Exshaw - the largest cement plant in Canada

watercolour and coloured pencil

Thermovoltaics is a technology that converts heat into electricity. Waste heat is everywhere. Globally, of the energy used to power the industries that the world needs such as cement and steel, approximately 60% is simply lost as waste heat.

Industrial activities account for about one third of total energy consumption and urgently need to cut CO2 emissions.

In 2022, the energy intensity of the cement sector reached 100 kWh per tonne, with fossil fuels as the primary source of thermal energy. Globally, iron and steel manufacturing consumes 8% of total energy demand, contributing to 2.6 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of CO2 emissions annually.

Addressing the emissions from these industries and finding ways to capture and productively use the vast amounts of industrial waste heat are critical steps in the fight against climate change.