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How energy storage made headlines in 2017

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A lot has been said about the booming global capacities of solar and wind in the past few years. But wind works at a maximum 35% of the time for onshore and perhaps 45% for offshore wind. Solar PV is even lower, with 20 to 30% capacity factor. So, backup solutions are being sought. 2017 … Read more

Altered:Nozzle – Same tap. 98% less water

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Last year I was blogging about the Nebia showerhead which was proposing to save 70 percent water thanks to liquid atomization. Now with the same technology comes the Altered:Nozzle which saves a massive 98 percent of water that comes out of the faucet while not cutting on fonctionality.

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Greenland lost a trillion tonnes of ice

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While it is undeniable that the fight against climate change is ramping up, slowly but surely, rising temperatures and environmental degradation are getting scarier each month. An example among others was how Greenland lost one trillion tons of ice in just three years.

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The American success story of tire recycling

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Dumped tires USAHere is an impressive environmental success story that took place in the United States. According to Mother Nature Network, up to 90 percent of the two to three billion tires dumped in the USA have been recycled over the past few decades.

To MNN : ” In 2011, 197 million scrap tires were recycled or repurposed, a number that’s growing. The biggest category is tire-derived fuel, (…) but more than 500,000 tons (26.2 percent) became ground rubber and playground walkways “

In the full article there is a link to a great story from Maryland, where 1.2 million old tires were dumped in a wetland. After having them removed, Nature got back to its original state.

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Brazilian deforestation increasing

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Illegally logged timber floating in BrazilHere are some bad news I read last week : deforestation in Brazil is increasing again. For the past years, it had been decreasing steadily, reaching its lowest levels in two decades.

But over the last year, deforestation increased by 28 percent over the previous one. As the BBC noted : ” The government is working to reverse this “crime”, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said.”

This takes place as on a global scale, the world has lost a staggering 900,000 square miles (2.3 million square kilometers)  of forests between 2000 and 2102 to deforestation or fire.

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Annie Leonard presents the Story of Solutions

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Story of solutionsAnnie Leonard, of Story of Stuff fame did it all again and presented another great video on how we have to and can change the world. Called The Story of Solutions, it focuses on changing the end-game of MORE to a one focusing on BETTER.

We have seen it already, working on ever increasing the Gross – gross as in disgusting ? – Domestic Product (aka GDP) simply depletes natural resources to make money.

As a graduate in Management and Business – for hire – this message particularly resonates with me as this blog has shown time and again that the current model simply isn’t working.

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Animation : Borrowed light, by Olivia Huynh

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Borrowed light by Olivia HuynhThe previous nights were the occasion to see the Perseid meteor shower. It was also the Nuits des Etoiles in France, where hundreds of events are organized to allow people to watch stars and (re)discover the sky and stars above our heads.

As you perhaps know, I am quite an astronomy fan and I believe it is very sad that the skies aren’t dark anymore. So when Grist published an article about a cute animation on that very topic I knew I had to share it with you.

Borrowed light by Olivia Huynh made me wish for a darker sky and to be able again to enjoy the marvels of the stars, galaxies and nebulae.

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Friday video : Petroleo

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I thought a short video might be interesting to end this week. It’s called Petroleo and it was done by two animation students at Gobelins, The French Ecole de l’Image. This was done during a Cartooning for Peace workshop.

An idea from famous French cartoonist Plantu, Cartooning for Peace offers higher levels of visibility to the many syndicated cartoonists fighting for peace and Human Rights around the world.

Petroleo offers a great reflection at our addiction to oil and its effect on us. You know my opinion on that matter : we need to get out of oil ASAP.

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James Hansen must-see speach at TED talks

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As the official TED talks website notes on this absolute must-see and must-share video : ” Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change.

“In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future. “ The future being the one he will leave to his grand-children.

Yes, Mr. Hansen is worried for the future he will leave his grand-children. And we should be. For us, our children and grand-children.

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Earthrise, the making of

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I love the picture Earthrise. Since I first discovered it back to 2007, it has become the central part of my communications; It is featured on my Twitter account, my About.me page, my business cards and on the header of this website.

So when Andrew Revkin from the New York Times tweeted about the “ Nice video assembly of Apollo 8 astronaut audio & photos leading to iconic “EARTHRISE” image “ I just had to click.

To say the least, I wasn’t disappointed as this making of clearly explains how such a beautiful image was created by the Apollo 8 crew.

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The Thorium Dream

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I was mentioning last week a documentary called The Thorium Dream, produced by Motherboard.tv. Lasting less than half an hour it is an absolute must-watch to grab the potential of this technology.

I know we shouldn’t cringe to just one solution. But I now believe that nuclear risk and waste free is one day possible. Thorium is already being used in India, and I believe it will be used more and more.

While we are waiting for thorium to be ready for commercialization and its mass use, we should work massively on efficiency and renewables.

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