2012

Towards sustainability, reloaded : water

For the third installment of the series – see the previous articles on heating and electricity – I would like to propose you a selection of the best tips to help you to decrease your water consumption. Water scarcity is a major problem today as many countries and regions of the globe (South Asia, China, […]

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Hiriko, the folding electric car

Here is a new article I wrote for Cleantechies : ” Cities are facing many problems, including the lack of parking spaces and air pollution. Regular electric vehicles would solve the air pollution issue, but not the parking one.” ” This is probably why the (MIT worked on a folding electric car codenamed CityCar. The

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A year after Fukushima, and the future of nuclear

A year after the catastrophic events in Fukushima, Japan is planning to be nuclear free by May 5. It is I believe a good opportunity to focus on the future of the industry. Opinions diverge on this critical issue. Some believe nuclear is bound to disappear as it has a negative learning curve and that

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Global warming close to becoming irreversible

To Reuters : ” The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday. (…) As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be

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Offshore natural gas exploitation isn’t safe either

We have seen in 2010 with the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico that offshore oil exploitation could lead to dramatic pollutions. Now, we are learning the hard way that offshore natural gas exploitation can be foolhardy. As The Guardian noted : ” Oil giant Total has confirmed that a major gas leak on one

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2050 and the consequences of inaction

” Humanity has witnessed unprecedented growth and prosperity in the past decades, with the size of the world economy more than tripling and population increasing by over 3 billion people since 1970. “ ” This growth, however, has been accompanied by environmental pollution and natural resource depletion. The current growth model and the mismanagement of

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Another heat wave hits America and Europe

As Al Gore noted on his blog : ” The March heat wave continues to shatter longstanding records from the Upper Midwest to the Northeast, with more than 2,200 warm temperature records set during the month so far.“ Meanwhile, President Barack Obama admitted during a fundraiser that the temperatures experienced in Chicago – around 80°F

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Germany to invest 200 billion euros in energy

To Energy Bloom : ” Chancellor Angela Merkel is planning to spend 200 billion euros ($263 billion) developing an energy program that will create a series of offshore wind farms that will cover an area six times the size of New York City. “ ” (…) Germany has a plan to boost its renewable energy

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China could cap energy consumption by 2015

China is so profoundly harmed by pollution that it is more and more aggressively pursuing – or trying to pursuit – a cleaner development. The last example of this was exemplified earlier this month by a Reuters news article : ” China, the world’s top energy consumer, is expected to announce in the first half

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World Water Day : focus on rainwater harvesting

Today is World Water Day. I would like to pick the occasion to write about access to water as 800 million people still lack it. A massive forty percent of the African population is still without it. Luckily, there are plenty of solutions, one of them is rainwater harvesting. An article [Fr] from the Syfia

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