Lowline, the first underground park in the world, soon in New York
Lowline will be an incredible underground park project recently receiving the preliminary agreement of the City of New York for its achievement in Manhattan by 2018. Read more
Zero-fuel plane Solar Impulse ends historic round-the-world trip
Solar Impulse landed Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, where the aircraft capable of flying day and night with solar energy only as fuel completed a tour of unprecedented world technological challenge. Read more
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Use clean energy to combat global warming
Consensus materializes around a very important fact: it is imperative that we move quickly to clean energy. However, even the best case scenario would not be enough to avoid climate catastrophe. Reason: the burning of fossil represents only about 70% of all emissions of greenhouse gases. The remaining 30% are from various causes that must also be addressed. Read more
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An amazing “foresidence” in Turin
The forest- residence 25 Verde allows its residents to stay in the heart of the trees and escape from the Turin urban homogeneity. And the city comes alive.
A combination of live trees and steel branches dresses this unique 5-storey building designed by Italian architect Luciano Pia. The structure consists of 63 apartments, each having a terrace and plants just beyond their windows and walls. Every variety of plant has been chosen tenaciously from deciduous plant life in Turin to give a big diversity of colour, flora, and blossoming.
The city comes alive
Above-ground, 150 trees absorb 200 000 liters of carbon dioxide per hour and protect residents from noise. The seasonal pattern of trees also offers a microclimate favorable to residents during cold or hot seasons. And then there are the varieties of colors and flowering.
This concept of vertical forest is booming in Italy. In a previous article, we wrote how it is evolving in Milan.
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Hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is ‘healing’
Good news, on the environment, is scarce. For the first time, a group of English and American scientists succeeded in demonstrating that the hole in the ozone layer is showing signs of disappearing.
The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is in the process of recomposing much faster than expected, according to a British-American study, published recently in the prestigious journal Science.
The researchers did not expect such a conclusion: the last fifteen years, the hole over the ozone layer has shrunk four million square kilometres, which represents half the size of America. How to explain this “healing” of the ozone layer, in the words of American scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who led the study? “It would be largely due to the efforts of countries worldwide to stop using some pollutants gases, chlorine gases,” Susan Solomon told. “This is really a significant accomplishment for society. It is a global environmental dilemma, and we have put ourselves on a good trajectory,” Solomon added.
A significant accomplishment for society” – Solomon
These gases were, for example, in air conditioners, refrigerators, or aerosols. Mainly responsible for the weakening of the ozone layer, they have been progressively banned after the signing of an agreement by all countries in the world in 1987 known as the Montreal Protocol. And because they are less present in the atmosphere, the hole over the Antarctic is absorbed faster.
Scientists are quite optimistic for the future: according to their models at the current rate, the ozone layer will be completely reconstituted by 2050.
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Salt provides energy to 75 000 families in Nevada
75 000 homes are being powered by solar energy in Nevada 24/7 without the sun. This is a first in the world and has been made possible through the Crescent Dunes project which is a revolutionary plant using molten salt to store energy.This technology is also Read more
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The ‘Three Amigos’ vow 50% clean energy by 2025
United States, Canada, and Mexico will join hands to use greener and cleaner energy like wind, solar and other carbon-free sources of electricity, in order to generate at least 50 percent of its energy from “clean” sources by 2025. This promise was made at the ‘three amigos’ summit in Ottawa last week. (Article appeared in Chicago Tribune on June 28, 2016) Read more
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Iceland transforms carbon dioxide into limestone
It has no climate-related worries. However, Iceland, land of ice and fire, is the first to have created an efficient and inexpensive system of burying carbon dioxide emissions. This ingenious and revolutionary system would convert carbon dioxide into stone quickly, and possibly (surprisingly) .
This is not the first time that researchers are trying to find a solution to get rid of carbon dioxide emissions. However, according to representatives of Reykjavik Energy, who are behind this project called CarbFix, this new method of pumping the CO2 which has been dissolved in the water is crucial to the ecology.
Once pumped from the volcanic rocks of the country into basalt, carbon dioxide was transformed into limestone in a lapse of two years. The researchers themselves were surprised by the speed of this process where the gas was changed to a solid body in just two years. This transformation could have taken thousands of years, if left unattended.
This test took place 25 kilometers east of Reykjavik. The researchers injected 220 tons of CO2 in volcanic layers of up to 800 meters below the surface of the earth. They also added water which has reacted with the gas to form a key factor in mineral reactions, carbonic acid. Samples were taken at several intervals from nearby wells.
“We must fight against rising carbon emissions and it is a technique to store permanently shaped stone,” said Juerg Matter who is the head of this project, at a function at the University of Southampton, UK.
We must fight against rising carbon emissions” – Matter
A potential challenge for the new technique is that it requires large amounts of water; that is, 25 tons for every ton of CO2 buried. However, Juerg Matter considers that sea water could be used, which already abounds on coastal sites.
“In the future, we may consider using it for power plants in places where there are a lot of basalt and there are many of these places,” said Martin Stute, part of the research team at Columbia University, US.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that storing carbon dioxide is extremely important in the fight against climate change at a very effective and inexpensive way.
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Electric rickshaws are the ‘tuk of the town’
In Bangkok, Delhi or Cairo the roar of the auto rickshaw is part of the soundscape. Easy to navigate their way through traffic jams and narrow streets, the tuk-tuk is one of the most convenient ways to cross congested cities in several countries. Since existing models are very noisy and polluting, some companies have decided to come forward with a solution: create a zero-emission electric version. (Article from The Guardian, 3 June 2016)
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Cyril Dion: ‘Demain’ is becoming a tool to bring together
‘Demain’ is breaking a record in its category with over 1 million viewers in six months. The César for best documentary at the 41st César Awards 2016, and already broadcast in thirty countries; the latest being on the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius yesterday. Co-director of the phenomenal documentary ‘Demain’ (Tomorrow) Cyril Dion is an artist who tirelessly continues to carry his message: another “history of the future” is in the process of being invented … Cyril Dion gave an interview to French paper L’Express on 19/06/2016. Read more
